In the End, You Will Kneel
by IncantationFetter
Summary: Loki holds a grand three-day ball to find a woman worthy of ruling at his side. But it wouldn't be a party at Loki's place without a bit of magic, murder, and deception. Thor: TDW spoilers. AU. Loki/OC. M for sexual themes, language, and violent deaths.
1. Presentation

Disclaimers: During an illness not long after I saw Thor 2, in my fevered half-sleep I dreamed a rough and much more nonsensical version of this story: a strange combination of Cinderella and Agatha Christie's Ten Little Indians, set in Asgard. Any strangeness left in it or deviations from Marvel movie canon, you may blame on my faithfulness to that dream. My Sigyn (pronounced SEE-guhn) is of my own creation, based on what little is known about her from actual Norse tradition (pleasingly little, for my purposes). She bears no relation to the Marvel comics Sigyn. I am familiar with the Marvel universe only by way of the films, so discerning comic lovers may want to give my stories a miss. This is my first foray into fanfiction, and I hope it will soothe your life's troubles the way it soothed mine.

* * *

**Chapter One - Presentation**

* * *

Sigyn Eiriksdottir was the two hundred ninety-seventh maiden in line to present herself to Prince Loki, newly-named heir of Asgard. The trickster prince was allegedly redeemed from a lifetime of wickedness by a near-death experience on Svartalfheim, but Sigyn had seen too many faces of Loki Silver-tongue over the years to give this particular one much credence. She wasn't here seeking his approval.

By the time she was close enough to see that ridiculous helmet, her feet were twin throbbing torments in the punishing boots she'd chosen. High heels, elegant laces - they'd seemed like a good idea when she'd been unexpectedly showered with coin. Odin All-father - though supposedly bedridden with grief for his lost wife - had been generous enough to gift all five hundred of the invited maidens a clothing allowance, so that none might have an advantage over the other in appearance. A magnanimous gesture in theory, but no amount of gold was going to give Sigyn a decent cleavage, or straighten her nose, or soften the square lines of her jaw. The enforcement of sartorial equality served only to give advantage to those women who had been born beautiful.

All the same, Sigyn had been unable to resist this once-in-a-lifetime chance to indulge in elegance. To show off a slender neck and graceful collarbone, to cover her callused hands with elbow-length gloves, to contort and torment her normally lank hair into a cascade of ringlets that looked to have been shaved from fresh white pine.

Never mind the scornful glances of these highborn ladies who read her poor breeding in the asymmetrical lines of her face. Never mind that her invitation was meant only as a courtesy to her father, who had died slaying Laufey's guards during the attempted assassination of the king two years previous. Never mind that Sigyn was stealing a place from some fine lady who might have been a legitimate marriage prospect for that piebald weasel of a prince. Sigyn had survived to young adulthood without committing a single selfish act, and tonight she was trying it on to see how it felt.

Like the boots, it was already starting to chafe. What was her purpose here? What had she been thinking? Even if some myopic highborn lad did pass over the beauties on either side of her and whisk her onto the ballroom floor, she could hardly walk, let alone dance.

Sigyn looked down the line ahead of her to the front, where the latest prospect spread her frothy silk skirt as she knelt. Her hair was the color of candlelight, her dress like a splash of seafoam. It was hard to see where Loki was looking, but given the woman's plump silhouette and the depth of her obeisance, Sigyn could hazard a guess. The guard standing to Loki's left read her name off of a ceremonial scroll in a strident tone, as he had all the others. "Aesa Grimsdottir! Granddaughter of Snorri Half-Bear, victorious general of the Battle of the Red Sands!"

Sigyn still couldn't see the prince's face, only his helmet and the slim straightness of his form. As he lifted his arm, she could see the deep green lining of his fur-trimmed cloak. He gestured imperiously to his right, where some two dozen women were already waiting. Two dozen out of the nearly three hundred who had so far presented themselves. The chosen ones.

Aesa's shoulders hitched in what looked like a suppressed squeal; then she gathered her skirts gracefully and hurried to join the others. Lambs to the slaughter, all of them. They seemed pale and feverish; fans were opened and closed and opened again, trembling hands smoothed already perfect hair. Was it the nervousness of anticipation, or were they wise enough to be afraid?

The next girl looked as flawless to Sigyn as the rest of them, but apparently she didn't pass royal muster. When the prince gestured off to the left, indicating that she should head to the main ballroom, the heartbroken lady didn't even try to contain her sudden barrage of sobs. Sigyn felt a twinge of pity, then remembered that whether the girl knew it or not, she had dodged a poisoned arrow. Odin All-father may have officially pardoned Loki's sins in the wake of his heroism on Svartalfheim, but forgiveness was kindness, not magic. Sigyn didn't believe for one moment that the serpent had been transformed into a stag.

Now there was only one woman between herself and the prince. Despite herself her belly knotted, and she felt the palms of her gloves grow damp. Her cheeks were cold, her knees unsteady. She looked down at her intricate gown, a pale gray-blue like a hazy spring sky, and suddenly wished it were armor. The woman kneeling ahead of her did not pass muster either, apparently; at Loki's gesture she rose with great dignity and exited to the left. Sigyn advanced to take her place; now there was nothing between herself and Loki but silk and fifteen feet of air.

When she raised her eyes to look at the prince's gaunt, familiar face, her nervousness abated instantly. The helmet with its great curving golden horns was too much for his slender frame; it made him look like a boy dressed in his father's clothes. Her fear of him evaporated, leaving nothing but gut-souring scorn. Had she really once found him beautiful? He was like some unholy cross between a reptile and a cave grub.

"Sigyn Eiriksdottir!" trumpeted the guard at Loki's side. "Daughter of Eirik Halfdanarson, who slew five frost giants to protect Odin All-Father and his lady Queen!"

The crowd quieted. Sigyn's was an awkward claim to fame, given how futile her father's sacrifice seemed now, with the king dying and the queen's death so recent, so violent. But that wasn't the worst irony of this honor done to her father. Remembering the worst of it, she found that her spine and legs had turned to ice, and would not move.

She stood and stared directly into Loki's pale eyes. The corners of his mouth twitched as he stared back with amused astonishment: the look of a man still uncertain how to react to an act of blatant insanity.

The guard cleared his throat. "Show the Prince your respect," he said, almost kindly, as though the daft kitchen-girl were merely ignorant of proper courtly etiquette.

"I am," Sigyn heard herself say. The silence was excruciating; her voice fell into it like a rock down a well. "I am showing my respect for the savages who slew my father here in this very palace - and my respect for the man who invited them in."

Loki's expression froze into something blank and dangerous. But Sigyn had opened the bottle, and she would not stop until she had drunk its dregs. She gathered her will and turned to face the crowd. A scullery-maid turning her back on the heir of Asgard. She did not expect to live out the night.

"Do none of you wonder at the All-father's absence here tonight?" she asked in a rush while she still breathed. "Is it truly grief that keeps him abed? How far would Loki Silver-tongue go to gain a throne?" She raised her voice over the swelling murmurs of shock and outrage. "How many times has he brought ruin to those who thought themselves his allies? Whom does he serve but himself? Hear me, and do not bind yourself to this - this man-child, this liar, this power-starved betrayer of kin. Leave this hall while you have the chance. Leave Asgard, if you can, for this land will not be safe under-"

A guard's hand was over her mouth now, his other arm wrapped crushingly around her middle. She didn't struggle; it would only make his armored grip all the more painful. The guard turned back toward Loki, turning Sigyn with him, and the prince no longer looked like a boy in a man's armor. He had drawn a cruel curved blade and stood before the throne, tall and horned and terrible, with eyes like the abyss between worlds. He would cut her down and she would fall at his feet, pale silk drenched with hot blood. They would see him for the beast he was. She would die with with purpose, as her father had.

But then Loki pulled the rug from under her courage.

He smiled.

A slow smile, like an expanding crack in unstable ice. His eyes grew bright and hard as diamonds. He sheathed his weapon, then let the lush folds of his fur-trimmed cloak fall back over it. He backed up, three playful steps, then sank gracefully back onto his throne.

"The girl speaks treason," he said in a velvety voice that carried to every corner of the tomb-silent hall. "And there was a time, not long past, when I would have made her pay the price."

Sigyn could almost hear the collective hammering of the thousand hearts that crowded the hall.

"But not tonight," he said softly. As he continued to speak, his voice gradually rose, ringing with conviction. "Tonight we leave aside our griefs, our fears, our anger. Tonight, I choose to lighten my heart. This is a night to dance, to be merry, to show our enemies that Asgard is a place of beauty and joy, and that our spirits cannot be diminished by their brutality. We should not let the bitterness of this poor grief-stricken girl dim the light that the rest of you have brought to this enduring hall. Knowing myself how grief can cloud the mind, I will forgive her as the All-father has forgiven me. Come, Sigyn Eiriksdottir. Take my hand in friendship, and then join the others in the ballroom."

Loki extended his hand, gloved in black velvet, palm up, but remained seated on his throne.

Tentatively the guard released Sigyn, but she didn't move. She was caught in a moment of vertigo; his pose had jarred loose a scene from her childhood.

Tagging along behind her father, mother too sick to watch her. She was so small that the memory was only an exaggerated sketch, but the princes were nearly men already: sun and moon, the future of Asgard. Loki, his pale hand stretched toward her, something glittering-sweet in his palm. Thor stepping to his side, laying a sun-bronzed hand over the candy before she could take it.

"Never take candy from a stranger," Thor had said to her, eyes gentle as an Asgard summer despite his imposing bulk. "Especially not this stranger," he'd added, slanting Loki a look decidedly less gentle. And then the two had walked on, bickering, the guard's little girl already forgotten.

A different guard cleared his throat. In the here and now, Loki was still holding out his hand toward her.

Sigyn shook her head once, barely perceptible, still holding Loki's eyes. The sudden flash of thwarted rage she saw in them gave her an unaccountable impulse to laugh. But she kept her face a stony mask, and did not release the prince's gaze.

"I do not blame her for being afraid," he said with a self-deprecating smile as he slowly withdrew his hand. A ripple of surprised mirth moved through the crowd behind her; she could almost feel them releasing held breaths. "Have it your way, Sigyn Eiriksdottir," said Loki in a tone of theatrical defeat, and repeated the gesture he had made for more than ten score women, an elegant sweep of his arm to the left and a gracious inclination of his head. No one but Sigyn and the guards heard the words he growled toward the floor.

"Lock her in the dungeon," he said, his voice dripping venom.

When he looked up, his smile for the crowd was radiant.


	2. Captivity

**Chapter Two - Captivity**

* * *

All in all, Sigyn preferred the palace dungeon to its kitchens. The kitchens were hot and close; they stank of smoke and sweat. Her cell was well-lit and surprisingly roomy, and while the open fourth wall was only an illusion, it gave the space an airy quality that felt more like freedom than her usual haunts.

The surrender of her fine clothing was meant as a humiliation, she knew - and indeed her cheeks had burned to see a balding prison guard thoughtfully handling one of her lace garters - but the loose drape of the gray woolen shirt and trousers they'd issued her was almost sinfully comfortable after the pinch of boots and corset.

They'd taken the pins from her hair, making a wild mess of it, but her scalp no longer ached from its piled weight. The curl still held, and she toyed with a strand idly, smiling at it as though it were someone else's as she reclined on her cot. After her friend Katla had spent two hours' torturous afternoon work in the palace dressing-rooms massaging the limp lifeless stuff with an expensive serum and twisting it around scalding hot irons, it had turned out damn near fetching.

She'd been left alone for several hours now, but that in and of itself was a luxury. The quiet, the blank white walls. It made her feel drowsy and peaceful.

_"Get up."_

The command was so unexpected, the deep voice so menacing, that Sigyn's bare feet had swung over the side of the cot and launched her to full attention before she had time to think it through.

Prince Loki stood just outside the invisible fourth wall, black hair swept back from his pale brow, his gaze bearing her down. He'd shed his cloak, and his blade was clearly visible where it hung sheathed from his slim hip. Even his party clothes looked like armor, black and gilt-edged, hard lines that gave the lie to his little speech about merriment.

"To what do I owe this honor, Your Highness?" said Sigyn, still muddled with shock. She'd imagined that the palace guards would be dealing with her from this point forward. She'd been counting on it, since fully half of them had adored her father.

The prince smiled his coldest smile. "Oh, now we see how pretty the scullion's manners can be."

Sigyn was too shocked that he knew where she worked to form a reply.

"It's just as I thought," he went on with an unmistakable note of smugness. "A few hours of quiet contemplation has tempered your _righteous rage_." He lingered on the last two words, caressing them into a mockery of an angry growl. "I'm so pleased you've come around."

"Does that mean I'll be released?" A surge of relief hovered over her, but caution borne of experience prevented her from giving in to it.

"That depends entirely upon you," he said. "Are you yet ready to kneel before the crown prince of Asgard?"

Sigyn probably shouldn't have laughed. But it burst from her like a loosed arrow, a single sharp projectile that, from the look of it, struck him directly between the eyes. She clapped her hand over her mouth, too late. Loki stilled and blinked as though physically struck, then took a step closer, eyes ablaze, doing his best to tower over her despite the invisible wall between them.

Sigyn peeled her hand from her mouth. "I'm sorry," she said, and put it back immediately.

Loki said nothing, just continued to loom on the other side of the barrier, gloved hands clenching and unclenching as he stared her down.

Sigyn couldn't help herself; she dropped her hand and said, "Truly though, Highness, is this not beneath your dignity? Did I commit treason or didn't I? Do you choose to show mercy or don't you? You can't sincerely plan to make my sentence contingent on such a ludicrous formality?"

He blinked again and drew back slightly. "Ludicrous?" he echoed. His tone was somewhere between baffled and taunting. "Contingent? Language like that from your mouth is like fine wine from a trough. Where does someone like you even learn such words?"

"I serve food every day to the elite of Asgard," she said. "It's not as though they fall politely silent when I enter the room."

"And here we see the root of your problem," Loki said, beginning to pace grandiosely outside her cell. "You spend so much time around your betters you think yourself their equal. I would find it amusing if your presumption hadn't led you to slander me in front of a thousand of my subjects. I'm thankful that no one took you seriously, and you should be thankful too. If they had, I might not be in the mood to negotiate - _ludicrously_ or otherwise."

She thought she read a twinkle of genuine merriment in his eyes, and perhaps that was what tempted her onto thin ice. "I am happy to negotiate," she said. "But you should know, I kneel when I am moved to do so. If you wish to see me upon my knees, I suggest you do something to merit reverence."

Instantly she knew she had made a mistake. The pale planes of his face sharpened; his jaw clenched. She had tested the cell's barrier a dozen times and found it solid as rock, and so she didn't think to step back until he had already passed through it as though it were water.

In a heartbeat she was against the back wall, held there by his velvet-clad hand on her throat. Her courage deserted her utterly; her world shrank to a tiny bright pinpoint of terror. He could break her, leave her there, and no one with the slightest influence would care. He had done worse to his own kin.

"Do not speak to me of merit," he snarled, so close she could feel the contemptuous P in 'speak.' "You were brought before me out of pity. Your father did Asgard a service, but he wasn't clever enough to survive it, was he? Where was his 'heroism' two months ago, when the woman he swore to protect died a bloody death at the hands of her enemies? Your father was a flimsy piece in a grand machine, a machine in which your piece is worth even less. My own father has been two feet from you hundreds of times, and never noticed you. You are invisible. You are replaceable. You are _nothing_."

Slowly he relaxed his hand on her throat until the pressure was no longer painful. As the immediacy of her mortality receded, Sigyn became aware of the intimacy of their position, the flimsiness of her clothing, the humid warmth of his wine-scented breath, and a new kind of fear filled her. Her arms closed around herself protectively, and Loki smiled his hollow smile, as though reading her mind.

"What did I just say to you?" he said. "Do you think I would touch you, other than to punish you? Upstairs there are fifty women of indescribable beauty who have been at times literally tripping over one another to be closer to me." He stared at her, his hand still lightly resting across her throat, as though waiting for her to reply.

She shouldn't have. But she couldn't help herself.

"And yet here you are," she said.

His hand tightened a fraction. "Because you are a problem," he said. "A man does not watch the sheep who are safely behind the fence."

"Have you ever in your life seen an actual sheep?"

"Besides the metaphorical ones upstairs? Regrettably, no." There was no mistaking the glint in his eyes this time; he was enjoying himself.

_Stop while you're ahead, Sigyn_, she told herself. _Do not insult him again. Just close your lips and be silent, and you will survive the night_.

Her silence left him nothing to do but study her. "You are uglier at this distance," he said.

"Gray isn't exactly my color."

"Your nose lists to the left. Did you get in a fistfight with some other ugly scullion?"

"I do not fight. Just bad breeding I suppose. But I've never wanted beauty; beautiful scullery maids end as haggard unwed mothers."

"That is a fate you need never fear," he said, casually releasing her throat and moving toward the invisible fourth wall.

Sigyn's knees buckled under her, and she slid down the wall, landing hard. At the sound, Loki turned. He stood for a moment, then smiled faintly as his gaze traveled down her crumpled form.

"Well, well," he said. "They bend after all." And then he was gone.

Sigyn caught her breath, then drew her treacherously pliable knees up to her chest and wrapped her arms around them. Nestling her forehead into the little hollow between them, she shook with silent sobs.

Because he was right. She had spent more hours in the palace of Asgard than out of it; she had watched the adolescent princes grow into men, had learned their quirks and their rhythms, could tell the footfalls of one from the other without looking. The faces of Asgard royalty were more familiar to her than the one that stared back at her on the rare occasions when she bothered with a glass. But she had been nothing more than a ghost to them. A disembodied pair of hands refilling a goblet, unattached to a mind or a heart.

It had never bothered her before. She had been contented to befriend other palace staff, to have the respect and affection of her peers. The station she'd accepted all her life shouldn't have bothered her now. It was that damned dress; it had made her feel that she ought to have the ear of princes and highborn, that her opinions ought to matter.

She should be thankful to Loki, she supposed, for setting her straight. Except that she wasn't. The man who had just so gleefully put her in her place was going to be King of Asgard soon enough; he would rule the land she loved with all her heart. She couldn't let it happen. Somehow, she had to expose his cruelty and treachery; she had to make others understand that he was the same man who had meant to sacrifice everything he should love for a chance at power. But how? She could do nothing from inside a prison cell.

Would she be forced to her knees after all, just to earn the chance to bring him to his?

"Go and lie down, lamb," said Valka. "After a few cycles you'll learn to bear it better, but seein' as it's your first time I'll let someone else scrub the pots tonight. You go and rest, and think on the wonder of womanhood, and try not to think on the pain."

Sigyn nodded gratefully, and ducked out of the crowded kitchen. Instead of navigating the dim, familiar warren of the lower floors, she decided to go above. She should find Father and tell him. He'd be embarrassed, but proud.

Near the end of one of the grand arched hallways that flanked the royal audience chamber, Sigyn pulled up short. The princes were coming. She moved against the wall, out of the way.

They were on their way to a formal occasion; Sigyn held very still as they drew nearer. Thor strode ahead, his hair a wild golden mane, his arms bulging beneath his fine white sleeves. He was like an alpha dire wolf in a ribboned dog collar. Loki, on the other hand, looked as though he'd been born in onyx velvet, slashed to let little glimpses of green silk show as was the height of fashion in those days. He was intensely beautiful, the lines of his face so fine and sharp, his eyes-

-looking directly at her.

Sigyn lowered her gaze immediately, but she could feel her pulse hammering in her throat. Had she done something wrong? Made a sound? Was her shirt buttoned wrong? Oh giants' breath, had her protection failed, had she bled on herself? She checked furtively, but nothing in her uniform was amiss.

_He can smell it on you_.

She had no idea where the thought came from, but it raised goosebumps on her arms with its sheer superstitious logic. The stealthy predator, scenting blood, knowing her weakness. But it was nonsense, and she dismissed it immediately. Loki was simply the sort of man who never let anything slip past his notice.

She waited to lift her eyes until they'd passed, and then she quietly watched them walk away. Day and night, sun and moon, the center of the slow monotonous turn of her life.

Then Loki stopped. Thor didn't seem to notice; he continued walking. Loki slowly turned and looked back at Sigyn. She lowered her eyes quickly, but even as she did so, she knew something was amiss. _This wasn't how it happened. He should be walking away._ Why did she hear his footsteps approaching her?

"Sigyn."

This wasn't right. He didn't know her name. _Don't look at him_. If she closed her eyes tight, he would go away.

"Sigyn." His voice was more insistent now, taut with impatience.

She drew in a sharp breath and sat up on her cot, wakefulness crashing onto her all at once like a bucket of icy water. She was in prison for treason. And the man who had put her there was standing in pajamas, a housecoat, and half-buttoned riding boots, outside her cell.


	3. Release

**Chapter 3 - Release**

* * *

Sigyn could only assume that Loki remained in the hall outside her cell as some twisted nod toward courtesy, given how easily he had breached the barrier before. The sash of his heavy black housecoat dangled untied; beneath it she could see his loose-fitting nightshirt and trousers, forest green silk. One of his trouser legs was half tucked into his boot; he hadn't bothered with the other. His hair looked as though he'd been running his hands through it agitatedly for quite some time.

Sigyn ground the heels of her hands into her eyes. "What time is it?" Then she dropped her hands into her lap, wincing in anticipation of his blistering response to her poor etiquette. But Loki seemed not even to notice; he began pacing outside her cell. "Two hours til dawn," he said.

"You should be sleeping," she said. "Or... dancing." Sigyn smiled wryly despite herself, thinking of the stammering, reluctant women he'd coldly and expertly swept around ballrooms all his life. His hands never wandered; he never made eye contact; nothing mattered to him but perfection. He treated dance as though it were a competitive sport, his partner the disappointing runner-up deposited at the side of the room afterward like a spent horse.

But now his steps traced a mindless rut outside her cell, and his fine-boned hands were laced tightly together behind his back. The dream had muddied her thoughts; she was still seeing him through her adolescent filter, admiring what she'd once thought fine. She forced herself back to the present: here was the man responsible for her father's death. It was particularly hard to see him as the menacing villain now, though; the unbuttoned tops of his boots gaped open as he walked.

"Anyone I might dance with is asleep," he said distractedly.

The ball was a three-day affair; room and board had been arranged for the women and their families in the guest wing of the palace. Sigyn's alternate accommodations had thus far failed to impress.

"All asleep but one," he went on. "Jolinn Sveinsdottir."

The name meant nothing to Sigyn. She stared at Loki.

"The dark girl with the shorn hair," he said as though this should jog her memory. "Some distant relation of Heimdall's. Plays harp fit to make a jotun weep."

"You said she's not sleeping? Why? What is she doing?"

He stopped pacing and looked at Sigyn flatly. "She's dead."

"Ah!" Sigyn pressed a hand to her mouth.

"Her heart gave out," he said, beginning to pace again. "Her parents are taking the body home; her lovely sister Jora is still hoping for a chance at my hand, it seems, and is staying." He made a scornful sound, still pacing. "Asgardians have a very strange way of grieving lost siblings."

"I'm so sorry, Your Highness. Was she-"

Loki didn't seem to hear her. "They're saying it was too much excitement, a terrible tragedy, but-"

He stopped, laying his palms flat against the glass that wasn't there, his face drawn. He seemed to look past her; he spoke so low she was obligated to rise and move nearer. His nightshirt was slightly askew; she could see one edge of his collarbone.

"She told me it would happen," he said. Then he pushed back from the barrier and began to pace again, slowly, pensively. "I didn't think anything of it at the time. 'My heart feels as though it will burst,' she said, with the most radiant smile. And then not two hours later, it did."

"She smiled when she told you she was going to die?"

Loki gave her a withering look. "It's a figure of speech. She meant she was happy."

"Why?"

His expression melted into one of affronted incredulity. "I was dancing with her, you lackwit. I had just said she was the finest woman in the room."

"Did you mean it?"

He blinked. "That's an intensely personal question."

Sigyn ran a hand back through her tangled hair, still a bit crisp from the serum she'd baked into it. "This whole conversation is intensely personal. You're in your nightclothes."

He looked down at himself as though someone had undressed him while he wasn't looking.

"So I'm only trying to understand what it is you need from me," she said. "If I should be... comforting you, or-"

A laugh escaped him, much as hers had escaped the night before, wild and unbidden. He, by contrast, was not in the least apologetic. "You, comforting me. Does a flea comfort a wolf?"

He did, however, take a moment to tie his housecoat.

"Then why are you here?"

"Because it helps me to think aloud," he said, giving the ends of the sash a final sharp tug, "and you're the only person I'm completely certain didn't kill her."

Sigyn drew in a quick breath. "You think it was murder? But... how? Why?"

"What did you say about me last night? What wouldn't I do to be king? What wouldn't some women do to be queen? Many of Asgard's highborn are gifted with great power. I call Jolinn the finest woman in the room, in a room full of other women, and now she's dead."

Sigyn gave him a reproachful look. "If you called her the finest woman in the room in a room full of other women, I'm surprised _you_ aren't dead."

"Yes, well. As fascinating as it is to receive an etiquette lesson from a woman who called the crown prince of Asgard a 'man-child' in front of a thousand of his subjects, right now I would like to find out which of forty-nine seemingly innocent highborn ladies thinks she can get away with murdering the most beautiful woman in Asgard."

Was this his way of grieving? Had he cared for the girl, and needed a villain upon which to focus his rage, rather than passively accept another tragedy so soon after his mother's death? Or was there really something sinister afoot that only Loki was clever enough to suspect? There was no way for Sigyn to know, hearing only his version of events.

"Do you intend to bring her to justice?" Sigyn said, folding her arms over her chest. "Or do you intend to mete out your own twisted version of revenge?"

Loki turned to her, smiled his slow smile. "Neither, you slack-jawed cretin," he said with savage glee. "I intend to marry her."

* * *

Sigyn had never seen the appeal of marriage. She had virtually no memories of her parents together other than the few times she and her father had sat patiently at her mother's bedside in her final year. The wed women she knew seemed harried and tired and older than their years, worn out by work and children and husbands whose hearts and eyes wandered. What companionship and affection Sigyn needed, she found in friendship and in her father, and that had always been more than enough.

Her friends, though, had other ideas. Long before womanhood her friends played at weddings, using discarded tablecloths as bridal trains, arguing over who got to marry Thor. One fight between her childhood best friends Sissa and Katla had escalated to hair-pulling and crying, and Sigyn had stepped in to intervene.

"There are two princes," she said reasonably. "One of you can marry Thor, and one of you can marry Loki."

"Loki?" they gasped as one, momentarily unified by their shared disgust. Katla straightened Sigyn out immediately. Loki was not acceptable. He was too skinny, too pale, he turned people into toads with womanish magics he'd learned from the Queen. Thor was strong and kind and handsome and could wrestle a bear to the ground. He would be king. There was no comparison. Each protest strengthened their unity until they ended as friends again, arms linked, smug in their mutual correctness. Sigyn was pleased, at least, to have ended the fight.

But Katla's horror at the innocent suggestion had been so instantaneous that it left Sigyn with a crawling sense of shame. Because she had never thought to judge the princes that way. They were so different, each with his own beauty - but no. She'd been wrong, it seemed. She never mentioned it again.

She should have felt vindicated, now, to see the finest ladies in Asgard recognizing what she alone had first seen. Except that over the years the beauty she'd seen in Loki had been gradually swallowed by bitterness and malice, and by the time Asgard had finally decided to give him a chance, it was too late. He was the monster they had always imagined him to be, had perhaps made him to be.

Tragic irony or not, she could not allow this collective blindness to continue. Especially now that Loki was plotting to rule beside a murderer.

"How will you find her?" she asked him calmly, standing in her gray prison clothes and watching him carefully through the barrier.

"That is the challenge, isn't it, my ugly little duckling? Ah, such a glorious challenge." He rubbed his palms together, then wrung his hands gently as he continued to pace. "She must have great power, to slip invisible fingers inside the body and ravage it so mercilessly. Perhaps there is a way to trace her use of magic... But that would require her to kill again, which might cause a panic, and furthermore a woman with this much power would likely sense my blind groping and outmaneuver me before I could pin her down."

Sigyn wondered if Loki was aware of the double entendres that littered his speech. His hands continued to move as though each were washing the other, thumbs gently massaging the fingers of the opposite hand, over and over, a fluid motion that Sigyn belatedly realized had hypnotized her. She lifted her eyes to his face.

"If I may make a suggestion?"

Loki stopped his pacing and gave her much the same look he'd given her in the throne room when he had first noticed her refusal to kneel. This time the look settled firmly on the side of amusement. He swept an arm aside in a mocking little bow. "By all means, my lady."

"As fond as you are of subterfuge, a little honesty might be the simplest and wisest course here," she said. "You've already chosen the fifty most beautiful women-"

"Forty-nine."

"Forty-nine, now, yes. But you cannot marry them all, and so you must find other means to narrow your choice. Mention that you are interested in a woman who shares your gift for magic. Name a few other skills that interest you. And then ask the remaining women to prepare a brief display of their most impressive talent."

"Why Sigyn," Loki said with a gentle smile. "You surprise me. That seems a plan not only effective, but immensely entertaining. Well done. I shall implement this idea immediately, and you have my gratitude." And with that he turned to go.

"Ah... Your highness?"

Loki, lost in his thoughts, didn't seem to hear as he strode purposefully away down the hall.

"Loki!"

He stopped then and turned, startled. "What is it?" His scowl held more than a hint of warning.

"I have your gratitude, you said, and yet you leave me here, locked in a cell?"

For a moment Loki merely stood in the hall, staring at her flatly, not even seeming to see her. But then his eyes sharpened, and he smiled. He strode back toward her cell.

"Yes," he murmured, half to himself. "Yes, of course not. No, I will need you close." Loki opened a panel on the wall next to her cell, his fingers busy with some mechanism she couldn't see. Sigyn blinked. Surely she'd heard him wrong, but if she hadn't - she only hoped that they'd not destroyed her dress. Ah, but she'd never get her hair right again without help.

"I beg your pardon, Highness?" she said politely.

"I need you," he said, eyes still on the panel. Then he closed it and turned to her, eyes glittering with mischief as the barrier between them shimmered and disappeared.

He stepped forward to where it had been, as though to demonstrate her freedom; the move put him so close to her she had to tip back her head to meet his gaze. Pale green, those eyes, like a meadow touched with frost.

"You need - me?" Her stomach rolled over.

"Of course!" he said brightly as he stepped back into the hallway, gesturing for her to do the same. "Who better to serve as an extra set of eyes than someone utterly invisible? I'll order the kitchen to assign you to help cater in the sunroom. In exchange for my act of mercy you will attend to my guests, and put your love of eavesdropping on your betters to good use. You will report any suspicious conversation or behavior to me immediately."

Sigyn hated herself for the sinking feeling that overcame her. "Of course, Your Highness," she said, as she stepped free of one prison and into another.


	4. Servitude

**Chapter 4 - Servitude**

* * *

Sigyn knew it was petty of her, but she couldn't help but shed a few tears in the bath the next morning. Fear-sweat and fine perfume were lost alike in the warm soapy water; her curls wilted away in the steam.

Better to cry here than in front of her fellow servants. The palace staff led comfortable lives, hence her access to hot running water and a private bathing room. But after wearing silk and arguing with a prince it was surprisingly difficult to go back to a life she'd always found more than satisfactory.

Sigyn massaged shampoo into her hair, then eased back into the steaming water to let it wash lather and tension away. She ducked her head all the way under to wet her tear-streaked face, then sat up, tipping back her head and letting the water stream down over her back. She wiped her eyes with one hand while blindly groping for the shampoo bottle with the other.

Her fingertips found the crisp stiffness of straight-fiber wool gabardine, and beneath it the yielding warmth of a man's thigh.

Shrieking, Sigyn yanked back her hand and drew herself into a ball in the middle of the tub, staring slack-jawed at Loki, who was casually perched on the edge of the bathtub studying her shampoo bottle.

"Were you looking for this?" he said, offering it out. He was formally dressed, missing only his coat. From his manner, Sigyn might have been dressed in her prison clothes.

Sigyn spoke through a jaw clenched with fear. "What are you doing here! ...Your Highness."

"I needed to brief you before you started work, and you'd be surprised how difficult it is to discreetly speak with a servant alone. How can you bear to live the way you do, packed together like sardines?"

Something about his casual disinterest in her nakedness made her feel absurd about her modesty. There was not a single inch of the palace that was off limits to the heir of Asgard, and so she had no logical grounds to order him away. She tried to relax, as much as she could without uncurling from her fetal position.

"What do I need to know?" she said crisply. If he could affect dignity in his nightclothes, she could pretend it in a bathtub.

"All forty-nine women have scheduled auditions of a sort. It seems we have not one but four sorceresses in our midst, so I'll need you to pay special attention to their activities in the interim. How good is your memory?"

"Good enough. Give me names and descriptions, including clothing if you can." _Yes, let us include clothing. Clothing would be very nice, just now_.

"Jora, Dagny, Berit, Eydis." Loki ticked them off on his elegant fingers; no gloves today, or if so he hadn't yet put them on. "Jora, in particular, I want you to watch. Jolinn's sister. She has dark skin and long felted locks gathered low on her neck. Dark green dress."

"Wearing your colors already, is she? Presumptuous."

Loki gave her a sidelong smile. "Dagny is extraordinarily small, childlike, carries a fan. Hair almost snow-white, skin the same, ivory dress."

"Does she glow in the dark?"

"She may on our wedding night," he teased, eliciting a disgusted snort from Sigyn. "Berit has a golden dress, a ruddy, freckled complexion, and hair... hm. Somewhere between blood and fire. Strongly built; I suspect she would do well with a sword."

"Let us hope we have no cause to find out."

"And Eydis is tall but slender, pale and raven-haired, dressed in blue to bring out her eyes. Positively drowning in sapphires. Do you think you can pick these women out?"

"I'm sure of it."

"Excellent. Now." He lifted a hand, a light downward stroking motion in the air between them, and said softly, "Close your eyes."

She knew that being blind in Loki's presence was a terrible idea, but she also knew that his tolerance of her was precarious, and so she did as she was told. The moment her eyes closed, her other senses seemed to sharpen almost painfully. Her mouth was dry and bitter; Loki smelled of sweet wine and expensive soap. She could suddenly feel every wet exposed inch of her skin, and she prickled all over with gooseflesh.

After a moment she realized she was holding her breath, and slowly let it out. She wasn't sure what she expected, but it certainly wasn't... nothing. What was he doing?

"May I open my eyes yet?" she asked. There was no response. "Highness?" She waited another moment, then gave in and opened them without permission.

Loki was gone.

* * *

The sunroom was so named for its glass-domed ceiling, which not only let in Asgard's brilliant daylight, but was designed in the form of a stylized sun with eight jagged rays. Sigyn had catered events there before - it was just the right size for parties of fifty to seventy-five souls and thus saw use several times a year - but she had never seen it decorated so extravagantly or populated with such a parade of Asgardian beauties.

As she'd suspected, snowy-haired Dagny was the easiest to spot; she flitted from group to group like a butterfly, gossiping and giggling and befriending everyone with no apparent bias. Sigyn took care not to dismiss her completely, but she did not waste much time eavesdropping on her conversations, which contained about as much substance as the elegant gestures she continually made with her lacy fan.

When Sigyn spotted Eydis, she almost choked with laughter. In describing her, Loki had failed to mention how very like him she was. One of Asgard's greatest beauties indeed. She had a shrewd, clever look about her, so Sigyn tried to work her way gradually closer to hear her conversation, bearing a tray laden with goblets of red wine. Most of the women took wine from the tray as she passed without even glancing at the one who held it.

As Sigyn neared the raven-haired beauty, she was distracted by the sound of Loki's laughter. She glanced over to find him lounging at ease in a velvet-upholstered armchair, one leg slung casually over its arm as he leaned his elbow on the other. Three voluptuous women hovered near him, cooing and fluttering like doves, and his gaze roved well below the level of their eyelines.

Ah, troll's breath, was that - no. She hadn't glanced at his lap. She hadn't seen - no. She certainly wasn't going to look again to confirm how very interested he seemed to be in the conversation, she was not - oh heavens, there was no mistaking it, the plump strawberry-blonde in front of him had his full attention.

"Watch out!"

Sigyn looked toward the warning too late to avoid a collision. As though some cruel sorcery had slowed time, she watched in horror as the goblet closest to the edge of the tray wobbled, rotated elegantly on its slender stem like a pirouetting maiden, and then... pitched over the side to drench the front of Eydis's blue dress.

"Milady!" Sigyn gasped. "I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry!" She cringed, expecting harsh words or even a blow. When she looked up she saw worse: the woman's pale eyes had filled with tears. They were so like Loki's, though more blue-gray than green: a cloudy sky, now raining. The sorrow in those eyes wrung Sigyn's heart.

"Oh no," Eydis cried, stricken. "Oh _no_! This is my only dress!"

Sigyn thought of the one she'd worn, a similar shade and now useless to her. They weren't the same size, but possibly - no. She didn't dare draw attention to herself as a former guest; she'd already failed badly enough at invisibility. She ducked her head and stammered a few more apologies, but Eydis had already moved from grief to anger, her eyes going ice-hard.

"I'll have you sacked!" she threatened. "You incompetent little- What is your name!"

"My lady, my lady." Loki was there before Sigyn could answer, his hand gentle on the woman's wrist. "Shhh."

Eydis looked up at him, tears like diamonds on her sooty lashes.

"Dear, clever lady," said Loki soothingly. "Wine cannot douse your light; your treasures are found here." He tapped a fingertip gently on her forehead, and the sun came out from behind the clouds in her eyes.

"Ahh, my prince," she sighed. "You silver-tongued rogue, you."

"Come with me," he said. "You're of a size with my mother; I'm certain we can find you something suitable to wear."

Sigyn hardly had time to process the look of stunned incredulity on Eydis's face before Loki had taken her arm and whisked her out of the room.

With the prince absent, the very walls seemed to emit an exhale of relief. The women set to chattering animatedly at one another, picking him apart, analyzing his flaws, joking about him in tones that ranged from lewd to downright disrespectful. Green-clad Jora, Sigyn noticed, did not seem inclined to join in the talk and merriment; she was seated by herself, nursing a glass of wine and staring dully at the wall. Berit's conversation, on the other hand, carried all the way across the room.

"Oh I doubt he's interested in any of _us_," she was saying. "From what I hear, he's already given his heart and his cherry both, to someone with a very. Big. Hammer." She punctuated each word with a crude thrust of her hips, sending the girls around her into a frenzy of scandalized giggles.

"I'd be happy to entertain the both of them," one of them said breathlessly.

"I know a woman who makes some very interesting toys," Berit boasted. "If the crown prince wants me to tie him face-down and show him some thunder I'll be happy to oblige."

The girls shrieked fit to bring down the glass ceiling, and then shushed each other frantically as Loki and Eydis returned. Eydis was pink from her forehead to the low neckline of her new teal-green dress, and Sigyn didn't care to speculate as to why.

Once again the room's conversations became appropriately decorous, and Loki circulated politely. When the time came for the cleaning staff to set up the stage for the talent presentations, Loki excused himself from the room again - alone this time - and Sigyn found a shadowy corner from which to watch the proceedings.

"Did you discover anything?" said Loki's voice just beside her ear. She startled, and turned. She saw not Loki, but a nondescript male servant leaning against the wall next to her.

"Beg pardon?" she said to the servant.

"Don't waste time gawking at my tricks," the man said impatiently in Loki's voice. "Report."

Sigyn gave one last bewildered glance to the door where Loki had just departed. "I haven't had enough time yet to form strong opinions," she said, "but your absence certainly helped. Jora seems to be genuinely numb with grief; she hardly said a word to anyone. Berit has appetites to match her hair and not a hint of decorum. I seriously doubt little Dagny is our culprit; she's got a head full of fluff."

"Perhaps that's how she avoids suspicion. Any thoughts on Eydis?"

Sigyn slanted him a look. "The one you whisked away to undress?"

"The one you tripped over."

"Do you have any particular thoughts? About her appearance perhaps?"

Loki looked at her blankly. "Should I?"

"At the opening ceremony, you picked her out from the crowd in a matter of seconds, did you not?"

"If you have a point, my ugly little duckling, I'd strongly suggest you arrive at it before my patience runs out."

"Highness, she could almost be your _sister_."

Loki smiled, but there was no humor in it. "That, I severely doubt. But I thank you for what I assume is a weak attempt at flattery."

"And you'd know nothing of flattery, Sir Wine-Doesn't-Douse-Your-Light?"

"I am Loki of Asgard. I invented flattery."

"How much skill does it really take to compliment women such as these? When faced with a true challenge, I've noticed you abandon honey in favor of vinegar soon enough."

"Your hair is a lovely color," Loki said blithely.

"Oh, honestly." Sigyn puffed out an annoyed breath, turning away. "It's blonde."

"Pale, but hardly a hint of gold in it. Like saltwater taffy, or - cream, with just a splash of coffee."

"All this tells me is that you skipped breakfast."

Loki was silent for a moment, and when he spoke again it was at half volume.

"There is the most perfect shape, like the furled petal of a moonflower, in the valley between your collarbone and the slope of your shoulder. When you bathe, water collects there like dew on a chilled glass." He leaned in and, barely above a whisper, murmured, "How fortunate, the man who might bend to that cup to slake his thirst."

The air thickened in Sigyn's lungs; blood rushed to her face. She tried to form a response, but her tongue seemed to cling to the roof of her mouth.

Loki leaned back against the wall. She couldn't look at him. If she saw his smug expression she would fly apart completely, and so she fixed her gaze on the far side of the room. Eydis was there, in her new blue-green dress, but - something was the matter. Dagny was hovering over her and fanning her; Eydis seemed flushed and distressed.

"Highness," said Sigyn sharply. "Look to Eydis. Something is wrong."

A green shimmer passed over Loki's illusory form, and the black-haired prince strode out from the shadows. No one seemed to notice anything amiss about his sudden appearance; all eyes were on Eydis now as she let out a cry and put her hands to her head.

Loki swept past the women crowding her. "Give her some air!" he ordered.

"I was trying!" cried Dagny.

Loki gently helped Eydis from her chair. "What is it?" he asked, his eyes searching her face. "Come, let us go to the balcony."

"My head..." she gasped. "Ah, it hurts! I, _ahhh!_-" She stiffened briefly in Loki's arms, her face going blank; then Loki supported her weight as she drooped limply against him.

"Someone fetch the healers!" the prince barked, and a guard took off running. Loki cradled Eydis, looking down at her. "Help is coming," he said, but Sigyn knew by looking at the woman's face - and at Loki's - that the raven-haired beauty was already dead.


	5. An Unexpected Light

**Chapter Five - An Unexpected Light**

* * *

Sigyn was nearly trampled in the panic as the guards escorted everyone out of the sunroom. By the time she was able to bargain and plead her way back in, the room was deserted but for cleaning staff: plates shattered on the floor, wine goblets tipped to spill their bloody contents on upholstery.

Sigyn wrung her hands and paced the edge of the room. The poor girl. The poor guests. Poor _Loki_. No matter how irredeemably wicked the prince was, he was still a man capable of hurt, and a woman had just died in his arms, _wearing his mother's dress_. Was the king too ill to comfort him? Did their relationship allow for it? Sigyn tried to turn her mind to other thoughts, but everywhere she looked she saw the wild, lost, despairing expression she'd last seen in Loki's eyes.

Soon, servant gossip circulated that both Jolinn and Eydis had spiked high fevers moments before their deaths. The palace locked itself down in quarantine. Sigyn had to swallow panic, submit to blood tests, and catch what snippets of news she could. No one she spoke to had seen Prince Loki at all.

One by one, the staff and guests were examined by healers, their blood tested in vain for foreign antigens. At last Sigyn heard word of Loki: he was running a slight fever, gossip said, but his blood was clean. After the healers isolated him for a few hours without incident, the panic died down. By late afternoon the presentations were back on schedule, but there was a new tension among the guests: the strained silence of people avoiding the subject of death.

Perhaps out of respect, the Vanir violinist who began the afternoon's presentations chose an achingly sad melody. Loki watched from a high-backed, gold-upholstered mahogany armchair, almost a throne, set on a dais at the rear of the room. Once Sigyn had finished delivering drinks she settled into her shadowy corner, politely displacing a cleaning girl to get a better view not of the musician, but of the prince. He sat still and straight, no emotion visible on his face.

"Regal, isn't he?" said Loki from just beside her.

Sigyn startled, a hand flying to her heart, and turned, seeing only the cleaning-girl she'd displaced. Sigyn turned back to look at the prince in the armchair, then back to the girl.

"I shall never tire of that," the girl said in Loki's voice, then dissolved into his shape. "Fear not; you alone can see me here."

"Are you all right?" Sigyn said breathlessly.

"A mild earache, they surmise; I used to be plagued with them in childhood."

"That's not what I-"

"Jora is next," he interrupted. "Pay attention."

Sigyn held her tongue obediently and watched as the violinist curtseyed to wholehearted applause. As the lady exited the makeshift platform that served as the stage, palace staff strained to bring four heavy ceramic pots to marked spots on the floor. Behind each, servants placed a white-painted trellis.

Jora ascended the stage in a moss-green dress. Her thick serpentine locks were bound with dwarf ivy and hung down the exposed brown skin of her back. After the violin's lilting threnody, the room seemed oppressively quiet. Jora turned to face the crowd and closed her eyes, slowly raising her palms. For a moment, nothing happened; then Sigyn drew in a delighted breath.

From each of the four pots a vine rose, writhing like a snake from a charmer's basket. The vines uncurled sensuously, split and sprouted leaves, wrapped slim tendrils around the trellises for support. A vibrant green smell filled the air, and Sigyn felt a pang of nostalgia.

She remembered slipping in to wake her father for each morning's guard duty, bearing some little leaf or twig or blossom, her nails already caked with dirt. She recalled his sleepy embrace, the roughness of his cheek against hers. To him, each scrap of garden detritus was a priceless treasure. His loss struck her anew, keenly enough to make her eyes sting with tears.

Onstage the vines cloaked the trellises in green. White buds appeared, unfolding drowsily and dilating to full, round perfection.

"Ah, what talent," Sigyn breathed. "How does she get moonflowers to open in sunlight! They only-"

She stopped as she caught Loki's gaze; he was watching her, not the stage. His solemn intensity caught her off guard, and she looked away, embarrassed. When the audience burst into applause, she blinked away the moisture in her eyes and joined in wholeheartedly.

"Do you think it could be poison?" she speculated once the applause died down. She dared a glance at Loki.

The prince seemed to consider, thumb idly tracing his lower lip. "Though I hesitate to attribute malice to Heimdall's kin, a woman with Jora's power would have no difficulty cultivating something rare and toxic. Worth further inquiry, I think."

As the presentations continued - dancers, archers, even one baker distributing scones - Sigyn noticed distinct patterns in what did and did not impress the prince. Domestic displays bored him, but he gave full attention to music and recitations. He was outright riveted by dancing; at times his hands or feet would twitch slightly as though he yearned to step in.

When a plump girl with pale ginger hair got up to play the piano, a smile played around Loki's mouth. Sigyn recognized her as one of the ladies who'd crowded around him in the armchair that morning.

"Poor girl," Loki said. She had chosen a piece just slightly too hard for her, and in her eagerness was playing it too fast. It was grimly riveting, like watching a rowboat headed toward a waterfall.

"You like her," Sigyn observed quietly.

Loki gave Sigyn a sidelong glance. "Aesa? She's too sweet a thing to last long as my queen, I suspect, but I'll confess I'm drawn to her. There's something adorable about how spectacularly she trips over herself every time I speak to her."

Sigyn gave Aesa a considering look as the young woman's plump fingers scrambled desperately to keep up with the runaway musical snowball she'd set in motion. "Perhaps sweet is exactly what you need. To balance your bitterness."

He shot her another look. "Perhaps."

"Then you'd best keep away from her."

Loki's brows drew together briefly, but then understanding dawned in his eyes. "Ah. Yes. We wouldn't want her to burst with happiness." He turned back to watch Aesa at the piano, his expression hollow.

"I'm sorry, I only-"

Loki laid a finger against his lips, eyes still on Aesa's performance. Sigyn quieted, her stomach twisting with concern. When the girl had finished, the audience politely applauded, and Loki leaned in toward Sigyn again.

"Eydis died of a ruptured brain aneurism. I saw it right away in her eyes; one of her pupils was dilated wide. The healers confirmed."

"I'm so sorry."

"I complimented her mind, and her mind exploded. Do you still doubt this is more than coincidence?"

"I never said I doubted you."

"You never _said_." He gave her a steady look.

She fidgeted. "Perhaps," she admitted, "I was - open to the possibility that Jolinn had died of natural causes. But I agree with you now. There is an intelligence behind this."

Loki nodded, satisfied. Sigyn looked back out toward the stage, but there were no servants setting up, no one else climbing the steps to perform. The audience was already rising from their chairs and moving away, whispering amongst themselves.

"That can't be all, surely?" said Sigyn. That couldn't have been more than twenty."

"Sixteen," said Loki. "Did you not read the schedule posted on every wall of the palace?"

Sigyn looked down, hands gently kneading her apron.

"Ah." said Loki quietly. "I see. Of course."

The silence was excruciating. When he spoke again there was a note of exaggerated patience in his voice, as though he were coaching a child through an adult task.

"After dark there will be seventeen more performances - sixteen now I suppose. Then sixteen in the morning. I tried to get them to agree to shorter demonstrations so that we could compress the time frame, but I quickly became afraid of riots."

"Well, then," said Sigyn stiffly. "If the show is over I should return to work." Before Loki could reply, she moved to the catering table and fetched a tray of honey-ricotta figs, whisking it away into the crowd.

She shouldn't have been so embarrassed. She'd had no time for schooling; she'd had to help support herself. Only a handful of her friends could even write their own names, and they were ridiculed for putting on airs. Why would she ever think herself above them?

Jora the flower-sorceress stood at the eastern edge of the sunroom. She hardly seemed to hear her companions as she gazed up through the glass at the blushing afternoon sky. Sigyn brought the tray over to her, and Jora took a fig from it carefully as she stoically endured her competitors' praise.

"How glorious your estate must be!" one of them simpered. "Is it covered in roses and ivy?"

"Funeral lilies just now I imagine," said Jora dryly.

After an awkward silence, one of the girls ventured, "Were those the flowers you just grew? Funeral lilies for your sister?"

"Moonflowers," she said. "Night-blooming; the prince's favorite. Depending on context, they can symbolize night, instability, or a dream of love. Though I suspect he just finds them pretty."

The girls gaped at her. "I didn't even know he had a favorite flower," one of them said.

"Perhaps you should have spent more time on research and less on your hair," said Jora, popping the fig in her mouth. Taking their cue, the girls edged away from her.

Sigyn scanned the crowd. Dagny sat alone at the edge of a sofa, crooning tenderly at a tame dove perched on her wrist. A stone's throw away, Aesa stood gazing at Loki, pulling nervously at one finger of her glove. Loki appeared to be following Sigyn's advice and utterly ignoring the girl. Feeling a twinge of guilt, Sigyn approached her and offered up the tray.

To Sigyn's surprise, Aesa glanced at her and smiled. "Thank you," she said, pulling her glove the rest of the way off to take one.

Since the girl had addressed her, Sigyn dared a small liberty. "Your dress makes me think of the sea. It sets off your hair nicely."

Aesa dimpled bashfully, then looked down at the fig in her hand. "Oh! Is that ricotta? How scrumptiously they've nestled it in." She popped it into her mouth, then licked honey from her fingers in a way that would have entertained Loki immensely.

"I'm pleased you like it," said Sigyn. She hesitated a moment, but she couldn't think of a way to reassure her without being inappropriate, so she drifted away.

Berit, as usual, was having trouble keeping her voice down. "Play games if you like," she was saying to her companions as Sigyn approached. "But I won't hover and flirt. Just you watch, tonight I'll get his attention without saying a word."

"What is that supposed to mean?" another girl asked her irritably. "Are you going to sneak into his chambers?"

"You'll see," Berit said smugly, snatching a handful of figs from Sigyn's tray.

Once the last light had faded from the Asgard sky and the stars blazed silver above the palace courtyard, Sigyn found out what Berit had meant.

When the statuesque woman ascended the outdoor stage she wore a shimmering copper dress, her wild hair spilling free over broad shoulders. She wasted no time with preamble; the moment she took the stage she flung her hands upward with a wild cry, sending twin bolts of light toward the heavens.

Everyone gasped; the courtyard was bathed in an early dawn as Berit's magic blossomed into great fountains of orange and blue and green light that paled the stars. The air popped and crackled, filling with a faint, smoky scent.

Sigyn, circulating with champagne, glanced at Loki to see his reaction. Pink and violet light danced over his face, but his eyes were not on the sky. Something in his expression made Sigyn follow his gaze; there she saw Aesa, her face upturned in wonder, the night breeze stirring her hair restlessly like the golden flames of a chandelier.

As quickly and quietly as possible, Sigyn made her way to Loki's seat and offered him a flute of champagne.

"Don't stare," she murmured to him under her breath. "If I can tell you're smitten with that girl from across the courtyard, then so can our murderer."

Loki started and glanced at her, taking the champagne flute. The flash of guilt in his eyes told her all she needed to know. Sigyn moved away, feeling as though she'd swallowed lead. Suddenly she wanted nothing more than to go back to her quarters and sleep, to forget princes and murders and magic, to be nothing but a replaceable cog in a grand machine.


	6. That Fragile Darkness

This is one of my favorite chapters; I hope you agree. The song the pianist is playing at the end is Couperin's "Les Barricades Misterieuses." Search youtube for "Tree of Life Barricades"; you'll find it.

* * *

**Chapter Six - That Fragile Darkness**

* * *

Sigyn slept fitfully, dreaming of night-blooming snakes, fig shampoo, and showers of fire. As always she woke before sunrise, donned her uniform, and spent an hour roaming the palace in the pre-dawn stillness. The past two days had destroyed her equilibrium, and it took many gentle tugs on her wayward thoughts to bring them back to heel.

In the kitchen, Valda and a handful of other staff were up to their elbows in steaming water, struggling to finish last night's dishes. Sigyn rolled up her sleeves to help.

"There's our princess," said Valda, her eyes almost disappearing into their own creases. "I'll never forget how fine you looked dressed for the ball like a highborn lady. I can hardly see you the same now."

"That makes two of us," Sigyn said, inserting a soapy bottle-brush into the depths of a champagne flute.

"The prince's ladies disappoint me," said Sigyn's friend Katla, wrinkling her freckled nose. "I thought they'd be fine and elegant, but they gossip worse than servants, and did you see how much that heifer of a redhead ate?"

Sigyn knew she should be listening, but the entire subject made her weary and heartsick. She focused on the rhythm of washing, letting her friends' chatter fade into a comforting background noise to remind her she wasn't alone. Here in the smoky warmth of the kitchen she was surrounded by people who knew and loved her. In the sunroom she was insufficient; in the kitchen she was exceptional.

The name "Aesa Grimsdottir" pulled her back into Katla's conversation.

"You know, the little ginger with the great rack?" Katla said. "Her grandfather was some kind of war hero back in the olden days, but they say she's nothing more than a common tramp."

"What a terrible thing to say!" Sigyn scolded. "I've met her; she's perfectly nice."

"Oh she's 'nice' all right," said Katla. "Nice to boys and girls both they say. And from the look of the dress she sent to Inga this morning, last night she was 'nice' to half the palace guard. Inga says she never saw such a mess in forty years of palace laundry. Looked like half a dozen men had been at her and another half dozen too impatient to wait their turn."

A goblet slipped from Sigyn's fingers and fell into the sink with a wet thunk. She hardly heard the other girls' laughter and exclamations of disgust.

"Will you excuse me, Valda?" she said. Before the old woman could even respond, Sigyn had fled the kitchen.

Sigyn scurried through the high arched palace halls and stairwells, traversing great aimless circles around the mirror-bright marble of the third floor until she stumbled upon one of Loki's manservants.

"Gunnar," she said in relief, approaching him and lightly seizing his arm to whisper in his ear. "I must speak with the prince. Tell him Sigyn Eiriksdottir needs to see him urgently."

"You know he's going to rip my head off and shove it up my bum, right? If you were anyone else I'd tell you to get bent."

"I know. I'm sorry. Thank you, Gunnar."

As Gunnar departed Sigyn found a wall to wait against. After what felt like an hour, she saw Loki striding down the hallway toward her, hair uncombed and cuffs unbuttoned. He made a curt beckoning gesture as he turned down a side passage that led toward a rubbish chute. Sigyn wasted no time in following him.

"I shall assume this is a matter of life-and-death," he said to her once they'd stopped in the narrow hallway. "Since no one with the slightest sense of self-preservation would trouble me at this hour for anything less." On closer examination, he did not look particularly well. His eyes were bright and hectic, with sleepless shadows under them.

"Forgive me, Your Highness," she said, "But I'm worried about Aesa. I have reason to believe she may have - come to harm last night."

Loki stood slowly straighter. "Tell me."

"I think - some men may have - taken advantage of her. There was gossip in the laundry - "

"Ah," said Loki crisply. "Ah yes, that."

"You know about this?" said Sigyn incredulously.

"Mm." Loki shifted his weight.

"Are you going to tell me what happened?"

Loki began buttoning one of his cuffs. "It was me; I was with her."

Sigyn stared at him aghast. "The girls said it must have been at least half a dozen-"

"Just me."

"But... Inga said she'd never seen... in thirty years..."

"All me."

Sigyn stepped back to lean against the wall. "Giant's breath, Loki, what did you _do_?"

"If I answered you in full you would not thank me. It was done with consent I assure you."

"Tell me you jest," Sigyn said direly.

"I am both touched by your concern and slightly aroused by your curiosity, but let us speak no more of it."

For a horrible moment, Sigyn was paralyzed with shock and mortification and - something else she dared not examine - but then the whole mess of it was swept away by a crashing wave of righteous anger.

"How could you!"

Loki's eyes widened; then he clicked his tongue softly. "Ah, poor duckling. I never suspected you had become fond of me."

"Are you _mad_?"

Loki held up his palms in a placating gesture. "I swear on my life, I never meant to hurt you."

"For _fuck's sake_, Loki."

He blinked. "For fuck's sake, 'Your Highness'?".

"You risked Aesa's life! Do you have any idea how servants talk? How long do you think it will take for our would-be queen to find out where Aesa Grimsdottir spent her night?"

Loki's face shifted rapidly through several expressions before settling on penitence.

"I'll admit that it was a misstep," he said carefully, "and perhaps a grave one. I offer no excuse except that I am not my brother. When a woman offers herself to me I do not have a great deal of acquired resistance."

Sigyn stared at him a moment longer, then threw up her hands in disgust. "You've sentenced her to death," she said as she walked away. "This time when I weep it will not be for your sake."

Sigyn made her way down to the first floor. Some of the young ladies' families were still lingering after breakfast: mothers making last-minute adjustments to their daughters' hair, brothers lecturing sisters on proper behavior. A small tow-headed boy collided with a portly gentleman's knees; startled, the boy changed into a dove and fluttered away.

Sigyn recoiled and backed up a step. The bird banked and carved a graceful semicircle in the air before coming to rest on Dagny's shoulder.

"There you are, Falki," she cooed. "What did mama tell you?"

The dove slid off her shoulder, changing back into a boy as it did so; he ended up cradled in Dagny's arms. Even as small as he was, the tiny woman could hardly hold him.

"Can you be good for gramma and grandpa?" she said. "You mustn't run about while I'm gone; remember grandpa's heart."

"Yes mama."

She planted a kiss on the boy's forehead and set him gently on the ground. A snowy-bearded gentleman took the boy's hand, and Dagny gave the man a kiss as well before heading toward the sunroom.

Intrigued, Sigyn moved to intercept her. "Excuse me, milady," she said softly.

Dagny stopped and looked pleasantly bewildered. "Me?"

"Yes, I just wanted to say, you have a lovely little boy."

Dagny's ivory skin flushed pink. "Oh, yes, he's - a bit awkward, yes? I was young, you know, and stupid. It's so kind of the prince to consider taking on the burden of another man's child."

"He knows?" It was unforgivably inappropriate, but she couldn't help herself.

"Oh yes!" the little woman said, bouncing on the balls of her feet and clapping her hands gently. "He'd like to teach him, I think. Falki's gifted."

"Congratulations," Sigyn said, more bewildered than ever as Dagny dropped a little curtsey and wandered away.

Inside the sunroom, Katla was arranging goblets on a tray; Sigyn assisted her with unsteady hands while the staff set up the stage for the morning's performances. From the corner of her eye, Sigyn saw a male servant she did not recognize moving casually toward their table. A new hire? Sigyn took no chances; she quickly made excuses to Katla and moved to the other side of the room.

When she dared, she glanced back over her shoulder. The unknown servant was weaving casually through the crowd toward her. Sigyn let him make it most of the way, then cut a brisk arc around the main body of the crowd back to Katla's side. By then, the day's first performer was already mounting the stage, and the prince (or some semblance thereof) was seating himself in his chair.

"What was that about?" asked Katla when she returned.

"There was a man following me; he gave me a bad feeling."

"You've been acting oddly all day. Is something the matter?"

"I'll tell you when all of this is over."

[_For soundtrack to the following, right-click and open in another tab_]

The woman at the piano was elegant in a plum-colored dress, her hair hanging in fat brown sausage-curls. She played with all the skill Aesa had lacked; the music rippled like water, rising and falling beneath her fingertips. Sigyn released a slow sigh of admiration.

She glanced at Katla to find her just as charmed, and they shared an appreciative smile. Then Katla shimmered with green light, and Loki stood in her place. Sigyn stiffened and turned away.

"From Midgard's baroque period," he said. "Written for the harpsichord. An interesting choice."

Sigyn nodded at the piano. The rhythms of the piece were hypnotic, like the busily turning gears of some exquisite machine.

"Did you overhear anything of interest?"

"No."

For a long moment there was only the music, soft and intricate, tender and bittersweet. When the prince spoke again, his voice was gentle.

"Tell me why you are angry, and I swear I shall make amends."

Sigyn refused to look at him. "As I told you before, I am appalled at your carelessness with Aesa's life."

"You are, but I feel I've been careless with you as well. I touched something raw; I can see it in you."

She turned to look at him then, stiff with irritation. He was watching the pianist now.

"What you see in me," she hissed at his profile, "is what you see in everyone: your own importance. You believe my life revolves around you, that you can plumb my shallow depths in two days. When in point of fact you don't know me from Inga the washerwoman."

Loki turned then, slowly, to meet her eyes.

"Your mother fell ill," he said, "when you had not yet reached the height of your father's belt."

Sigyn stared at him. Something rippled queasily through her, like a shimmer over hot sand.

"You shadowed your father in his work during her long illness, and when she died, he found you honest work pulling weeds in the palace garden. Early mornings, just before dawn, when the chill was still on the grass. Your palms bled and stung for the first few weeks, and you cried, but soon your hands hardened and so did your heart. You learned each leaf and thorn as highborn children learned their letters, and the gardens thrived under your patient care. But the work did not pay well, and as you approached that mysterious barricade between child and woman you began to think of saving for the future. You went to work for Valda in the kitchen, scouring pots, and you and your rough hands have worked there in the afternoons and evenings ever since. And yet you still rise before dawn; I know not why. Perhaps in your childhood, out there alone in the garden under the last stars, you fell in love with that fragile darkness between night and day."

Sigyn stood motionless, unbreathing. She searched for words and found none; she could feel two bright spots of color burn on her cheeks. The floor seemed to shift gently beneath her feet like a calm sea.

"Why?" she said at last, her voice weak and hoarse. "Why do you know this?"

Loki looked away, back to the piano. "I could tell you as much or more about every soul who lives or works in this palace. That is what I do, Sigyn. I was the one who watched, while everyone watched my brother. I watched because only a fool turns his back on a man or woman - even a servant or a child - whom he does not know."

"Not because you care?"

"A king who knows everything and cares nothing is worth a hundred of his opposite. Caring, when necessary, can always be feigned. Knowledge cannot."

Sigyn nodded slowly, then turned her attention back to the pianist, who was bringing her song to a close. The applause afterward was like sudden rain on a hard roof; Sigyn shivered.

"Have you taken a chill?" Loki asked without looking at her. He was watching the next woman come and set up an easel.

"This is not an occasion where caring is necessary," Sigyn said flatly.

Loki turned sharply to her, fitting a verbal arrow to the string, but before he could loose it the doors to the sunroom burst open, and in strode Thor.

He arrived in all his golden glory, stormy-eyed, blood-red cape rustling picturesquely in the draft he'd created. Somewhere in the audience a woman squealed.

"Where is our father!" he demanded of the false Loki in the chair.

"Fuck," said Loki quietly. The obscenity sat for a moment like a bird-dropping, and then chair-Loki vanished and real-Loki strode into the center of the room, eliciting murmurs of bewilderment from the guests.

"We'll return to our little show in an hour's time," Loki announced. "Apparently there's to be a surprise family reunion."


	7. Bolt from the Blue

**Chapter Seven - Bolt from the Blue**

* * *

Loki escorted his brother out of the room, and as the doors closed behind them, the room exploded with frantic chatter.

"Ah, Thor!"..."It's Thor!"..."Do you think he's given up that mortal?"..."His hair is so long now!"..."Is he going to take the throne?"..."Did you see the look on his face!"..."What do you think Loki's done now?"

Sigyn used the commotion to her advantage, slipping out unnoticed through the servants' entrance and hurrying through the dim passage to its intersection with the main hall. As she drew nearer she heard the men's voices, muffled: Thor's forceful rise and fall alternating with Loki's fluid, deliberate cadence. It was the same song every time; only the lyrics ever changed.

"I am sorry," she heard Loki saying as she reached the mouth of the passage. She flattened herself against the wall and listened. "When I went to you on Midgard he was not so ill; it has been a gradual decline. You were overjoyed to see me for once; forgive me if I wanted to leave it at that."

"You had no right to keep this from me."

"You renounced the throne."

"I did not renounce my father!"

"Keep your voice down." A stern note crept into his calm. "I shall take you to him, but I'll not have you burst in upon him like a frothing messenger's stallion. There is wine in the sunroom; have a glass and come to me when you have settled."

There was a moment's silence, and then Thor spoke again, quiet and hoarse. "Promise me that you will let me speak to him."

"Of course. You have my word."

The marble echoed with Thor's heavy steps moving away. When all was quiet Sigyn slipped out into the hall. Loki stood alone, his back to her, and she approached him cautiously.

"Does this-"

Loki startled and turned; Sigyn was strangely satisfied by the momentary flash of panic in his eyes.

A muscle twitched in his jaw. "Never do that again."

"Forgive me, Your Highness. I would not have surprised you if I'd dreamt it possible. Does your brother's arrival change our plans?"

"I cannot say yet for certain." He considered a moment, then slowly smiled. "But I think I shall seize this present opportunity to see the true faces of my guests."

"What do you mean?"

"I shall take your form and serve them drinks. You shall take mine and show Thor to the Raven Room."

Sigyn fell back a step, her lips parting in dismay. "What? You're mad! He'll know me right away for an impostor."

"You are generous as always, but I think we both know that Thor is not renowned for his perspicacity."

"And your father?"

"Is all but unconscious."

"Your Highness - honestly." Sigyn laced her hands together, almost pleading. "What would I even say?"

"Remain silent unless my brother does something oafish, in which case, tell him so." He stroked his lower lip thoughtfully. "On second thought that won't lend you much opportunity for silence."

Sigyn frowned. "Why do you persist in speaking ill of your brother? You love him, do you not?"

"As one loves a particularly loyal hound."

"You nearly died for that hound on Svartalfheim."

Something passed briefly over Loki's face, a fleeting shadow too quick to read. "It was a necessary risk," he said. "I learned from my time on Midgard that fear alone will not make your subjects kneel."

"You tried to buy your people's love with - theater?"

"What do you propose I buy it with? They don't seem inclined to give it away." Something must have changed in her face at that, because he averted his gaze. "Thor will return in a moment," he said briskly. "Will you help me or not?"

"I shall do my best."

"No," he said, turning to her with a wide, manic smile. "Do your worst."

* * *

Odin All-father lay in a dim room on the highest floor, on the most opulent bed Sigyn had ever seen. Against the raven-black linen of the sheets his lank white hair and wan pallor made him seem a man already dead.

Sigyn was keenly aware of her intrusion into the king's privacy, but she resisted the urge to flee. In her current guise as Loki, she had every right to be there.

"Shall I leave you with him?" she suggested quietly to Thor in the doorway. He had been blessedly silent as they'd ascended to the summit of the palace, and Sigyn had managed not to gasp as the glass lift cleared the sixth floor and unveiled a glittering, heart-stopping view of Asgard that Loki had likely seen thousands of times.

"No, brother." Thor's voice was broken with grief, his eyes on the prone king rather than Sigyn. "You are his heir and his right hand. If he wishes to speak to me alone, he may say so himself."

Acutely uncomfortable, Sigyn shadowed Thor as he approached the bed. Odin opened his uncovered eye, and his face creased with a vague smile. "My boy," he said.

"Father," said Thor sternly. "What can you be thinking? Mother wouldn't want you to lie abed; there is much for you to do. Loki needs your guidance."

Odin's expression became grave. "He has always had it," he said firmly. "And he always will. Loki takes the crown with my blessing."

"I know, Father." Thor startled Sigyn by reaching back to grip her shoulder fiercely. "He will be a wise king, and his enemies will fear him. Asgard will be safe under his rule. But not yet, Father, please. Live to see him married, to pass along your wisdom to his sons."

Odin's rheumy one-eyed gaze turned toward Sigyn. "What say you, Loki, to this talk of sons?"

Mortified, Sigyn tried for a Loki-esque shrug. _Keep it simple._ "I've said more than enough today, Father."

Judging by the look on Thor's face, Sigyn failed at simplicity. His blue eyes brightened with tears, and before Sigyn could react he crushed her in a powerful embrace.

"It does my heart more good than you know," Thor said raggedly, "to hear you call him Father." He clutched a fistful of Sigyn's hair hard enough for her to feel the tug on her scalp.

"My lungs," she gasped.

A rhythmic wheezing cough rose from the direction of the bed. They drew apart to see that Odin All-father was laughing: his frail body shaking, his eye streaming tears. Thor grinned, giving Sigyn a final thump on the back that nearly sent her sprawling across the king's wasted legs.

"You see?" Thor said to the king. "You are feeling stronger already. It must be the thought of grandchildren."

"You know, my boy, I believe you are right." Odin smiled weakly. "Here I've been lying about, feeling sorry for myself as though I were the only one who mourned. I shall have someone bring me a decent supper tonight, and I shall try to get my strength back in time to meet the future queen of Asgard."

"That's the spirit!" said Thor.

"You'll outlive us all, my king," said Sigyn. Though she'd meant it sincerely, somehow in Loki's voice it came out dryly ironic.

The All-father lifted a hand to grip Thor's wrist briefly. "Go back to that mortal of yours, he said. "And give me a moment with my heir before I send him back to courting half of Asgard."

_Oh, no._

"Of course, Father." If Thor felt slighted it didn't show; in fact there was a sly triumph in the look he shot Sigyn on his way out.

Sigyn waited for the door to close behind Thor, then approached with trepidation to kneel beside the bed. "What is it, my king?" she asked. Her manner was too reverent, she knew, but she had never been this close to Odin All-Father before. Deception was bad enough; she would not stoop to further disrespect.

"You must not let Thor linger here, Loki," he rasped, looking haggard. It was as though the brief effort at mirth had sapped what remained of his life force. "Let him leave thinking I will be well. It is the last happiness I can grant him."

Sigyn's heart sank. "Will he not feel cheated if he misses your last moments?"

"A man's last moments are rarely his best," Odin said, with a wry twist to his smile that reminded Sigyn heart-tuggingly of Loki. "He heard my last laugh; let that suffice."

It happened before Sigyn could stop it: a great tide of grief rose in her, sweet and sharp and pure. Her eyes - ah, Loki's eyes! - overflowed with tears. She closed them, but it was too late; she had unmanned Loki in front of his father.

"All-father, I'm so sorry, this is wrong-"

A touch on her cheek interrupted her: an old man's hand, soft and cool, cradling her face as though she were a child and not the grown man she appeared to be. She opened her eyes in wonder; Odin's expression was tender and slightly bewildered.

"You grieve for what you believe lost," he said, "not knowing that you carry it within you. Every father is an immortal."

The king's words struck more deeply than he could know, and for a moment she could do nothing but gaze upon him in awed gratitude. At last she raised her hand to Odin's and took it gently in her own.

The king's face softened, the merest suggestion of a smile. After a moment Sigyn released his hand, and it sank back to his side as he closed his eyes. "You never cease to surprise me," he murmured, as though in sleep. His breathing, though steady, rattled softly in his throat.

Sigyn hadn't shamed Loki at all. Worse, she had cheated him of an irreplaceable moment with his father. Wracked with guilt, she rose and swiftly left the room.

And nearly collided with Thor.

Too late she remembered her red-rimmed eyes, but before she could hide them Thor had already wrapped his beefy arms around her and buried his face in her shoulder. She could tell that he was making an effort to be gentle this time.

"I'm fine, brother," she said, lightly thumping Thor's back with the heel of one hand and squeezing her eyes shut in mortification. "Stop. I'm fine."

"It's all right, Loki," Thor said, muffled against her shoulder. "Do not hide your grief; I know your heart, however you try to hide it. You are my brother, and one day you will be my king. I am glad for it."

Sigyn opened her eyes - and saw a blonde serving-girl standing slack-jawed in the hallway. Sigyn stiffened, and Thor pulled back to give her a quizzical look.

Sigyn gave him a tight smile. "Let us not play out our family drama in front of the servants," she said. "Go to the party. I will catch up once I've - " She gestured scornfully toward her face.

"Yes, yes," said Thor hastily, looking apologetic. He lifted his hands in a gesture of surrender and strode off toward the lift.

Once he was out of sight, the serving-girl shimmered with green light, and Loki stood in her place, looking less than pleased.

"I told you to escort Thor to the Raven Room. I did not authorize you to drench his shoulder with my tears."

"Are you in earnest?" Sigyn had her own voice back, but it sounded almost as sharp as Loki's. "Just how exactly is one supposed to avoid an embrace from that great bear of a man?"

Loki stared at her for a moment, then snorted. He tilted his head with a little lift of his brows: _a fair point_.

Sigyn, weakened by her spell of crying, was surprised into a wobbly laugh. Loki responded with a lopsided smile, but as his gaze drifted toward the lift the smile faded.

"A thousand thanks, by the way, for inviting Thor to the performance. Now you and I shall both be invisible."

"Ah!" Sigyn put a hand to her mouth. "I'm so sorry!"

Loki's gaze moved back to her, and he searched her face. "You meant well," he said. "And did well. He suspected nothing."

"I was fortunate."

"Do not dismiss my praise," he said sharply. She must have flinched, because a look of regret flickered in his eyes, and he spoke again with the gentlest tone she had yet heard him use. "I have no motive to flatter you idly, Sigyn Eiriksdottir. Permit yourself the luxury of pride. You are more than worthy."

Loki moved past her toward the lift, and as he did so, the backs of his fingers carefully brushed her cheek.

Her eyes fell shut; she'd had no time to brace herself for the novelty of his affection. It was as though Mjölnir had called a bolt from the blue and channeled it from Loki's hand straight through her to the floor. When she could move, she turned and watched him walk away, her entire body still humming with the shock.

_Fate help me_, she thought with quiet despair as the lift doors closed behind him.


	8. Shadow of the Storm

**Chapter Eight - Shadow of the Storm**

* * *

Sigyn took some time to collect herself before returning to the sunroom. By the time she arrived, the performances had already begun, and so she slipped in as quietly as possible. A mahogany armchair identical to Loki's had been procured for Thor in the interim, and now the two men sat side by side.

A handful of women, including Aesa and Jora, had elected to linger nearby. The rest either availed themselves of teacakes at the side of the room or sat between the princes and the stage watching a willowy dancer with nut-brown hair.

Sigyn tried to keep her eyes on the performance, but she could feel Loki's presence like a weight dragging at her attention. There was something faded in him, like a dimmed lantern. In his right hand he absently turned the stem of an empty crystal goblet. Needing no further excuse, Sigyn moved through the room to stand beside his chair.

"Another glass, Your Highness?"

Before Loki could answer, Thor turned to beam at her. "Thank you, my lady! And a few more of those little cakes, if you would. The yellow ones."

Sigyn inclined her head politely to Thor, then glanced at Loki.

"That will suffice," he said. But his hand moved to rest briefly on her wrist, a silent gesture of gratitude. This time she was better prepared, but even so a thrum of awareness sang through her veins. Loki was still feverish, to judge by the warmth of his skin.

Sigyn carried their empty glasses to the outgoing cart, where she paused as she heard Aesa Grimsdottir's name. Berit, of course, was gossiping with her usual lack of circumspection.

"That girl's a scheming little slut," she said.

Sigyn froze with dread - was Aesa's tryst with Loki common knowledge already?

"Look at her fawning on Thor now," Berit went on. "Right in front of him. Thank the fates Silver-tongue's too clever to let an empty-headed trollop like that catch his eye."

Sigyn let out her breath slowly, then darted a worried glance toward Aesa. She was talking animatedly with Thor, and although she didn't seem to be flirting by any definition Sigyn understood, Loki's demeanor suddenly made more sense.

Sigyn returned to the princes with a tray bearing yellow cakes and two goblets of morning wine, a folding stand tucked under her arm. She set up the tray on the stand between them, then turned to go.

Loki's fingertips lighted on her arm to stay her, and Sigyn looked to him expectantly, ignoring the pulse of warmth evoked by his touch.

"Stay close," he said. "My brother's appetite is legendary." Aesa and one of the other girls burst into giggles; Jora merely raised an eyebrow.

"Don't frighten the girl!" chided Thor, then turned to Sigyn with a warm smile. "He means food, little one." He winked at her. "And I expect to keep you busy this morning."

Sigyn lingered nearby as requested while Thor consumed an astonishing number of cakes. But she was more concerned with the rate at which Loki drank his wine, and with her own maddening reaction to their incidental contact each time she returned to him.

When Dagny ascended the stage, Sigyn welcomed the distraction. She made sure that both princes were well-provisioned, then slipped away to watch, leaning against one of the columns that flanked the rear of the audience.

Dagny had changed into a gown that was audaciously bridal: lacy, ethereal, and accented with pearls. The girl's unbound hair fell in platinum waves nearly to her hips. Sigyn found herself wondering if the blood of the Ljosalfar ran alongside that of the Aesir in those delicate veins.

When the girl began to sing, Sigyn was sure of it.

The melody rose like a ribbon of sunlight, winding its way around Sigyn's awareness, and the words of the song's foreign tongue were crystalline vessels for a harrowing, intimate sorcery. Dagny sang a requiem for a valiant guard entombed in ice, spear raised high, trolls lying broken and bloody at his feet. She sang of his daughter, and of the forbidden love that blossomed darkly in the walled garden of her heart.

Paralyzed with dismay, Sigyn turned to look at Loki, only to see that his face - and Thor's - wore the same expression as her own. The song, it seemed, tugged at each listener's heart by its own secret cord.

When the song ended, there was no applause. Awed silence blanketed the room as the tiny woman descended the steps.

_Now there is a woman who could be Queen of Asgard_, thought Sigyn as she turned her gaze back to Loki. She found only Thor, staring baffled and wet-eyed at his brother's empty chair.

Sigyn felt a pang of alarm; she could scarcely imagine what buried truths the white lady's sorcery had compelled Loki to face. She slipped around behind the column and hurried to the servants' exit, blundering half-blindly through the cramped passageway. Near the end she halted; Loki stood facing her, backlit from the main hallway, the corridor's poor light making a cipher of his expression.

"Your Highness," said Sigyn, pressing the heel of her hand to her heart. "You gave me a turn."

He said nothing, and his stillness made the hairs rise on the back of her neck.

"Given your location," she said tensely, "I can only assume you are waiting here for me. What is it that you need?"

He turned away from her then, looking out into the hall. "I will sit in my brother's shade no longer," he said. "Let him say farewell to our father, and then you will order him back to Midgard."

"I? I have no auth-" She broke off, frowning. "You mean to deceive him again."

"I do not trust myself to face him," he said. Sigyn was unsure whether he meant Thor, or the king. His voice was even, and his back was turned to her, but something in his manner suggested such acute distress that Sigyn held her questions.

"It will be done, Your Highness."

Odin was soundly asleep, which made Sigyn's job easier; she simply stood by while Thor knelt to give his father a final kiss. Thor's spirits were surprisingly good; he must have believed Odin's talk of recovery.

As they slipped quietly back into the hallway, Thor looked at Sigyn gravely. "I hope you will allow me to return for the betrothal ceremony?"

Sigyn had not been briefed, so she extemporized. "I will send word."

"May I ask you something?"

"I cannot promise to answer."

"What is it, between you and that girl?"

"Which girl?"

"The serving wench with the flaxen hair."

Sigyn would have given a great deal to see what her expression looked like on Loki's face.

"I saw the way you touched her," Thor persisted.

Sigyn laughed weakly. "I've touched any number of women this day. Confer with the laundress if you doubt me."

"That is not what I mean and you know it. It was like the tanner fork rail."

_The what?_ Sigyn almost said, but then feared giving herself away. "It's none of your concern."

Thor laid a heavy hand on Sigyn's shoulder. "I know what this is about, brother. You do not feel worthy of these highborn women, and so so you seek comfort in an inferior."

Sigyn felt punched in the gut. She wondered if Loki was allowed to punch back.

Then she heard her own voice, from down the hall. "In what manner, exactly, would you say I am inferior?"

_Damn you, Loki._

Thor turned toward Loki in horror. "Miss, I am so sorry, I meant you no insult."

"And that is the difference between you and your brother," Loki said, giving Sigyn's voice a frosty edge that she wondered if he'd taken from her speech in the main hall. "He insults me only when he means to."

"My lady, you must believe-"

"You princes hold yourself superior," Loki continued. "But we are all of us Aesir, all of the same tribe, the same flesh. And I begin to think I could rule Asgard better than the both of you. You should be ashamed."

And Thor was; Sigyn could tell. He looked like a kicked puppy.

"Enough, Sigyn," she said to Loki. "He already thinks we're carrying on an affair."

Thor spluttered. "I never said-"

"What should it matter?" snapped Loki. "As you just said, it's none of his concern."

Sigyn cleared her throat. "I think it's time you returned to Midgard, Thor," she said. And perhaps she had been too long in Loki's form, because some wicked impulse made her add, "That is where you like to go, isn't it? When you feel unworthy of highborn women?"

The blaze of anger in Thor's eyes ought to have daunted her, but she was too busy watching herself burst into astonished laughter across the hall.

Thor turned and strode to the lift, all but shooting sparks, and Loki continued to laugh as the doors closed behind him. As Loki shifted back to his true form, his laughter acquired a frosty edge.

"Your Highness," Sigyn said quietly.

Loki turned to her, stifling his mirth.

"What is the tanner fork rail?"

At that, his face relaxed into a look of profound weariness. He moved to the wall and sat, leaning his back against it and drawing up his legs.

"An old tale between me and my brother," he said, laying his forearm across his knees. "It is complicated and he was wrong anyhow. Never mind it. What do you think of Dagny?"

Sigyn laced her fingers together, examining them. "Honestly, Your Highness? I think she would make the sort of queen that legends are told of. But if your heart lies with Aesa, then that should be your choice."

"Should it not be _her_ choice?"

"Well, of course, but every woman here wishes to marry you."

"Wishes to marry the _throne,_" he said with sudden savagery. Sigyn stepped back involuntarily, and he made a staying gesture with one hand. "Forgive me."

Sigyn shifted, wrapping her arms around herself. "It's all right. I know your brother's visit unsettled you."

"Even the promise of a throne was not enough to take their eyes from him." He rested his forehead on his arm.

Sigyn hesitated, then moved cautiously to sit next to him. When he did not object to her presence, she let her hand settle lightly on his head. He did not move; the warmth of his fever radiated through his hair.

"It is true," she said gently, "that many admire Thor. But you only need one wife." Ah, his hair was so soft. How did everyone keep their hands out of it?

Loki eased his head sideways in his arms to look at her. Her heart ached at the careful way he moved, as though reluctant to disturb her hand.

"My wife will take me," he said, "because she cannot have her true desire."

Sigyn let out a soft snort. "You invent tragedy. The nine worlds do not revolve around your brother."

"Have you been to them all?"

Sigyn glanced skyward, then stroked the prince's hair from his face with her fingertips. "Your brother is a fine, honorable, good-hearted man," she said. "But I for one have never wanted him in that way."

"In what way do you want him?"

Sigyn gave Loki a stern look. "I would like to be on good terms with him," she said. "But I do not - yearn to be near to him, I did not swoon in his embrace. His face does not haunt me in my idle hours."

Only when she saw the twinkle of amusement in Loki's eyes did she realize that her fingertips had begun to trace his cheekbone as she spoke, giving her away. She started to draw back, but he gently took her wrist in his free hand.

Her skin ran hot and cold; her breath stopped. _You are reading this wrong, Sigyn. You must be._

Her uncertainty lasted only as long as it took for him to draw her palm to his mouth. The kiss he placed there was so hot it almost burned.

Sigyn stiffened with shock. Nuzzling her palm, Loki turned his eyes up to hers and laid another feather-light kiss on the heel of her hand. Her heart hammered hard, but she did not resist him. Still watching her, he placed a third kiss at the pulse of her wrist, his mouth lingering. After a moment, he eased out the tip of his tongue to taste her skin.

The sound that escaped her was hoarse and hungry and thoroughly embarrassing. His eyes continued to study her face, flicking gently back and forth; then he smiled and released her.

"I'm sorry," he said softly as he sat back against the wall. He looked more pleased than penitent. "I shouldn't tease."

Her hand dropped to her lap. "No," she said, feeling a great hollow open up inside her where her desire had been. "You should not."

He laughed softly, then he drew breath as though to say something. In the end he only closed his mouth again and shook his head.

"Why do you laugh?" she asked sharply. _He is so delighted to have discovered your little secret._

"I do not mock you," he said. "If anything, I am impressed. You never cease to surprise me."

Those words. They rang with a strange familiarity. Something-

The king.

_You never cease to surprise me_. Those had been the last words the king had spoken to her. The king Loki refused to face, the king who had worn the same smile Loki wore now.

Sigyn rose to her feet, backing away.

Loki lost his smile, his eyes wide and startled. "Sigyn?"

"Where is he."

To Loki's credit, he didn't ask whom she meant. The color drained from his face, and he sat rigid.

Sigyn closed her trembling hands into fists. "I see," she said. "I'm the worst sort of fool. Did it amuse you to play the dying old man, to see me weep? Where is he really, Loki? _Where is the king?_"

Slowly, Loki relaxed against the wall. And then he smiled: the terrible bleak smile of a man who, plummeting through ice, finally understands what all the signs meant.

"I killed him," he said.


	9. Orphaned

**Chapter Nine - Orphaned**

* * *

_This must be how my father felt in his last moments_, thought Sigyn. Ice crackling over skin and veins. Searing cold, then numbness. Her lips could barely form the question.

"Why?"

Loki rose slowly to his feet, watching her. "It was not by design."

"Tell me," she said. "You may as well. We both know you will not let me live to betray you."

Loki turned away. He gazed into the distance, but not absently; there was a keen purpose in his eyes that made her think of Heimdall.

"I went to Svartalfheim," he said, "knowing I would likely die. I felt my life drain away in my brother's arms, and I knew the peace of absolution."

"But that was not the end."

He shook his head, gaze still far away. "Something brought me back - magic, the hand of fate, stubbornness - and I found myself alone, discarded like rubbish on a blighted heath, I knew not why. I only knew that redemption's grace had been stolen from me. I could not be certain of welcome in Asgard. I had seen, after Thor's banishment, how quickly my people assume that each cruel twist of fate is my design."

"And so you decided to prove them right?"

"I only wanted to know. To see if my death was mourned, my sins forgiven - or if Father was relieved to have his most grievous error wiped out at last. I returned in the guise of a soldier, and reported my death to the king." Loki stopped, white-knuckled, a muscle in his jaw working. "He saw through my illusion. It was not my death that broke him, but my cruelty. That I should willfully add to his burden of grief when his wife's ashes were yet warm."

"He died of a broken heart."

Loki nodded, his expression relaxing. "Now do you see? I - born a monster - tried foolishly to die a hero." He smiled. "But fate intervened to remind me of my role. I did not murder my father, but Asgard yearns, no, _needs_ to believe such things of me. And what I did is near enough to murder that a good man would bow his head and accept the sentence. I, it seems, am not a good man."

"Where is the king's body?"

"I disguised it as a guard's and had it moved to a stasis chamber, claiming that the guard's wife had been delayed. Then I cloaked it from sight."

"Are you certain he is truly dead?"

"Sentiment tempts me to deny it. Flies, however, lack sentiment, and crawl the corpses of gods and rats alike." His eyes took on such a sudden emptiness that Sigyn reflexively stepped toward him, but he moved away. "Keep your place," he said in a dangerous tone. His hands twitched, then relaxed. "You have what you asked for. The final moments of Odin All-father."

"And are these to be mine?"

Loki let out a dry laugh, and a small blade shimmered to life in his hand. "What a pity I am so young and hale," he said, studying it. "Would that my heart were feeble enough to drop me where I stand. Alas. Stubbornly it beats on, in pieces."

Sigyn frowned. "I do not believe my loss would break your heart."

"No," he said, smiling. "You are nothing to me. But I cannot bear to kill the man you love. There is but one realm where he exists, and I must run a blade through it."

Tears rushed to Sigyn's eyes. "If you let me live," she said, "I swear on my life, one day you will see that man in the glass."

Loki searched her face. "You do not deny that you love me."

"It is true." The secret had taken root in her like ivy; now that it was torn away, her heart crumbled.

The blade in his hand vanished as suddenly as it had appeared. "Then I have nothing to fear from you," he said, turning away. "A lover does not willingly bring ruin upon her beloved."

_She does if she loves a mad dog_, she thought, but did not say. "Then you will let me live?"

"Do you want to live?" he asked, approaching her.

She lifted her chin to meet his eyes. "Of course."

"Enough to kneel before me?" he said, running the edge of his thumb down her jawline. "Enough to beg?"

Sigyn gritted her teeth and turned her head away. "If my bended knee is truly all that will buy your mercy, then you have my permission to kill me."

For a flicker of a moment Loki looked so lost that something stirred in the rubble of Sigyn's heart. But then his eyes burned with rage. "Remember," he said, "that this could have ended simply." He turned away and strode toward the lift without a backward glance.

* * *

After that veiled threat, the sunroom was the last place Sigyn wanted to be. But she was one of two people who knew that a murderer was on the loose, and the other was a raving madman.

By the time she returned, the morning performances were over, and some of the women had stepped out to see their families. Dagny and Jora were absent; Berit and Aesa lingered to socialize. There was a somber mood in the room, and the subdued conversations yielded nothing.

When Dagny returned, still dressed in her bridal finery, a hush fell. Everyone turned to look at her with expressions ranging from reverent to accusing. As she passed, the crowd parted like water. She hardly seemed to notice.

"Your Highness," she said as she hurried to the prince. "I'm so sorry!"

Loki eased back a half-step, wary-eyed. "For what, my lady?"

Dagny blushed and unfolded her ever-present fan, giving it a nervous flutter toward her face. Sigyn couldn't help but admire the picture they made, her lacy whiteness, the rich black of his hair and coat.

"My song distressed you," she said. "I don't know what you heard; I never do. That's the weakness of my gift."

"I know what it is to be burdened with an awkward birthright," he said. "You have elven blood?"

"On my mother's side," she said, blushing more deeply and fanning herself. "Not dark elf, though," she added hastily. "The other kind."

Loki gave her a tepid smile. "I am not offended."

"Oh good," she said, fanning herself even more energetically. "Falki's been asking for you, and I didn't know what to tell him-"

Loki moved in urgently as though to whisper to her. But the moment he took her arm he stopped. He turned it over in his hand and looked down at it with an expression of horror.

"You're warm," he said.

Dagny giggled nervously, fanning her flushed cheeks.

Loki dropped her arm and turned to the nearest servant. "Fetch the healers," he said. "NOW." The servant bolted.

Dagny shrank slightly at Loki's tone, but then she hesitated. "Yes... I do feel a bit..." She looked up at him, her face pinched with terror. "You don't think- no!" She panicked, suddenly dropping her fan and hyperventilating.

One of Aesa's friends was backing toward the door now, dragging Aesa with her. Most of the other women were heading for the exit as well, displaying varying shades of panic. A few, Berit included, stood staring like poleaxed cows.

"It's all right," said Loki. He helped Dagny to a nearby sofa. "Try to relax."

"I can't!" Her eyes brimmed with tears.

"Breathe."

"I'm trying," she said with a little sob. "I'll try." She took in a slow deep breath, then cringed. "I can't! It hurts!"

"What hurts?" said Loki. "Where?"

Dagny screamed in pain. The horrible high gurgling sound was echoed by the shrieks of the remaining women, who fled in short order as blood bubbled from Dagny's mouth to splatter on the white lace of her dress.

Dagny's frail body was wracked with wet, choking coughs; Loki seized her by the arms as though he could somehow hold her together. Red sprayed his face, splattered his coat, streamed down Dagny's chin to pool in her lap. She convulsed against the grip of his hands; her face went gray, then blue. Her coughs faded into labored gurgles, then stilled altogether as she gave in and drowned, going limp in Loki's arms.

For a moment the prince sat motionless, looking down at the body, his face mottled with blood. Then he bared his teeth, drew in a deep ragged breath, and roared with an animal rage that raised the hairs on Sigyn's arms.

She turned and fled.

* * *

"It's not your fault," Katla said, giving her a gentle shake. "Stop saying that." They sat huddled together in their shared sleeping quarters, where Sigyn had stumbled for refuge. Katla, caught in the midst of washing breakfast dishes, had taken one look at Sigyn's face and followed her.

"It has to be Berit," Sigyn mused. It had taken nearly an hour, but she'd finally told Katla everything short of the All-father's death. "Jora wasn't even there. Unless - she could have done something to Dagny before she entered-"

Before Katla could reply, Valda burst into the room.

"There you are!" she said. "Gunnar's outside; he says the prince wants to see you immediately! At the guest quarters. You're to put on your formal uniform."

Sigyn and Katla exchanged a wide-eyed look of dismay. "Don't go," Katla begged her.

Sigyn laid a comforting hand on her friend's freckled arm. "He can't harm me; the guest quarters are filled with people."

Katla frowned. "All right, but if you feel even a little bit afraid, promise me you'll run straight for the bridge."

The guest quarters were connected to the palace only by an arched, enclosed footbridge made entirely of Alfheim crystal. Far beneath the bridge ran one of Asgard's busiest avenues, and when there was movement to and from the palace on the bridge, at times the road became clogged with the horses and carriages of gawking citizens.

Crossing over the bridge gave Sigyn a qualm of unease; there seemed to be nothing between her and the avenue below. When she caught sight of Loki waiting for her at the far end, she'd have given a great deal for solid earth beneath her feet. He'd cleaned himself up since the ordeal in the sunroom; he wore a calm expression and a semiformal coat that fell past his knees.

"I am sorry if I frightened you," he said by way of greeting.

"In the sunroom?" Sigyn said. "Or upstairs?"

"Either or both," he said. Despite the apology, there was a stiff formality in his manner.

"Very well. What is your command, Highness?"

"I have an unpleasant task ahead of me. I need you to accompany me and assist if necessary."

Sigyn was beyond bewildered, but Loki's demeanor did not encourage questions, so she simply followed him through the grand arched doors of the guest hall. Inside there was a general air of subdued panic, and the guests scattered at the sight of the prince. If he noticed, he did not respond; he headed directly for a room toward the end of the main hallway, which he entered without knocking.

Inside on a small amber-upholstered sofa sat an elderly woman, clearly blind, and a white-haired old man who looked vaguely familiar. Both had puffy, red-rimmed eyes; suitcases stood packed at their feet. The old man took his wife's arm, and they both rose, then knelt before the prince. Even as it dawned on Sigyn where she was and why, a small boy emerged from behind the couch. Falki.

"Is it time to play birds again?" he said to Loki. "I want to be the raven."

Loki looked down at him. "Not today," he said quietly. "I must speak with your grandparents."

The old man turned his bleak gaze upon the prince; the woman merely continued to stare blindly ahead. "You honor us," the old man said dully.

"Please, rise," said Loki, and they obeyed. "This is my handmaiden Sigyn, a great admirer of your daughter's, who wished to pay her respects." Sigyn curtseyed solemnly. "You have my sincerest condolences on your loss," he continued. "I assure you that every effort is being made to determine the cause of her death."

"Thank you, Your Highness."

Sigyn glanced at the little boy; he had sat down on the floor and was attempting to remove his shoes. His grandfather made a curt, quelling noise at him.

"Is there a way to contact his father?" said Loki.

The old man shook his head. "The boy never knew him. I - dueled him, when - when - it happened, with my daughter. Fate was on my side that day, but has turned on me since." He spared a glance for his blind wife, who found his hand as easily as though she could see. "I do not know how I can care for them both," the old man said, his eyes filling.

Loki hesitated, and flicked a glance to Sigyn. Her cue to assist him.

"Love gives us strength we never knew possible," she said softly.

"I want mama," said Falki, a bit petulantly.

"He doesn't understand," said the old man.

Loki moved to the boy, sinking to one knee. "Falki," he said in a bracing tone. "Listen to me. I lost my mother, not long ago."

Falki looked up at him knowingly. "You have to hold her hand," he said.

Despite himself, Loki's mouth twitched. "Well, yes," he said. "I should have, but I did not. And now she is gone." His mouth twitched again, but this time there was a tremble in it. His eyes closed, and he put a hand over them.

"Don't be sad," said Falki. "You'll find her." He moved to hug Loki unselfconsciously, even as his grandfather winced. Loki passively accepted the child's embrace, his hand still over his eyes.

"Grandpa, why is the king sad?" said Falki, letting go. "Are we saying goodbye?"

"I'm afraid so," said his grandfather, rough-voiced. He began to pick up their bags, handing a small one to his wife.

Loki drew his hand away, seeming to have found control, though his eyes were bright with tears. "You are welcome back any time," he said to Falki in a slightly unsteady voice. "We'll play again." Loki stood, then, and addressed the grandfather. "I will see that a sum is sent to you regularly; he will have whatever he needs. He may come here for training as often as you are able to travel."

"Thank you, Your Highness," said the old man. He and his wife both bowed again to the prince, and then the old man barked for Falki to follow him. Sullenly, the boy obeyed, leaving Sigyn and Loki alone in the room. The door drifted slowly shut behind them.

Loki sat down heavily on the couch, staring vacantly at the door. Sigyn hesitated, then sat down beside him, leaving enough space for a third person between them. "Your Highness," she said gently. "Do you need-"

Loki's inner support structure seemed to collapse; he listed toward her, then fell upon her and wept. Sigyn's hands hovered helplessly over him for a moment, and then settled: one on his hair, the other arm wrapping firmly around him.

There was nothing left in him now of the silver-tongued trickster prince; he was a child, lost and awkward and broken, and the sounds that tore from his grieving throat were more animal than human. His hands clutched at the fabric of her sleeves, bunching it between his fingers.

Sigyn had no words to comfort him; she only murmured his name.

After a time his sobs quieted, and he rested with his head against her heart. It almost seemed he would fall asleep, and she wondered how long she would hold him, if he did.

The answer came to her, with a sharp pang. Forever.

But he did not sleep, and eventually he drew away from her, scrubbing his hands over his face, not meeting her gaze. When he lowered his hands she reached to turn his face toward her. Something wary flickered in his eyes.

"It's all right," Sigyn said. "It's only me."

His expression sharpened. "Don't say 'only' - that's my fault." He leaned close, rested his forehead against hers, reached up to slip his fingers into the hair at the back of her neck. "I'm so sorry," he said. They both went still, and Sigyn closed her eyes.

She felt something hovering between them, but she did not take it. After a moment he eased closer, testing her; she could feel his breath against her lips. But she was patient. Even when his mouth brushed hers - a wordless question - she did not lean in to answer him.

In the end, it was he who weakened.


	10. Scarred

**Chapter Ten - Scarred**

* * *

Sigyn had always assumed a kiss was a thing done by one mouth to another, but then, she had never kissed like this. Never breathed another's breath and felt the feverish pulse of his throat against her palm, never felt her face cradled in a man's fingertips as though it were glass. Loki's lips moved from her mouth to her cheekbone, her eyelids, her hairline, then her mouth again, gently.

When he finally drew away, he laughed hesitantly at her expression. "You look as though I struck you on the back of the head."

"It's all right," she said.

"Is it?" he said, searching her face.

"There is no happy ending to this," she said softly. "But I do not ask for one."

His fingertips ghosted along her hairline. "What would you ask of me, then, in return for all you have given?"

"Honesty," she said.

He laughed. "Is that all?" He rose from the couch and moved away. "Merely honesty, she asks from the god of lies."

"You have been surprisingly honest thus far."

"Ah, but I said you were nothing to me."

Sigyn's heart fluttered. "What am I, then?"

He turned back to her. "In honesty?"

"Of course."

He considered. "An accomplice, perhaps. Support. A friend? Such tepid words." He frowned. Then a smile came and went. "A test I am failing." His brow creased, and at last his expression settled upon weariness. "I have no idea," he concluded.

"That's all right," she said. "I will be happy to know, when you sort it out."

Loki rubbed gently at his forehead. "Do not spend your life waiting for my knots to untie," he said, laughing bitterly. "My father died waiting."

"I imagine I shall spend my life much as I have always spent it. My love does not hang suspended over an answer. I know my place."

He threw her a sharp look, then sighed. A strangely restful silence followed, like the space between movements of a concerto.

At last Sigyn rose, adjusting her uniform. She saw faint dark streaks on her blouse where his tears had fallen. Alarmed by the sudden wrenching ache in her chest, she drew her mind back to matters at hand. "Do you suspect Berit or Jora?" she said.

Loki fell easily in step with her change of subject. "I'm inclined toward Jora, since her sister was the first to fall to the murderer's jealousy."

"Not everyone responds to jealousy with violence, Your Highness," she said dryly.

He turned to her. "'Your Highness,' she says, with lips still wearing the flush I painted there."

Her cheeks heated. "You are still my prince, are you not?"

He made a frustrated sound and turned away.

"On the subject of heat," Sigyn said. "Berit calls fire, does she not? Perhaps she could boil blood, or make a heart explode like her lights in the sky."

"Since there remain only two," said Loki, eyes lighting, "we could stalk them, you and I. I will cloak us. Find Berit, follow her, and I shall do the same to Jora. Meet me back here in two hours' time."

For the first half hour, shadowing Berit was indescribably dull. The imposing redhead sat in the common room of the guest quarters with a bowl of figs, cramming handfuls of them into her mouth and nodding at the occasional passing guard. The only break in the monotony was when one of the other candidates walked by, and Berit took a moment to glare at her sullenly.

When Aesa approached the common room in a butter-yellow dress, humming to herself with a little flush on her cheeks, matters quickly became interesting. By the way Berit set aside her figs and rose to stride directly toward her, it became apparent to Sigyn that she had been waiting for Aesa the entire time.

"Come with me, girl," she said forcefully, gesturing with her head toward the western hallway. Aesa gave her a bemused smile, and followed. Berit's cinnamon-colored skirt rustled as she walked; Sigyn had the distinct impression that she would have been more comfortable in trousers.

"What is it?" Aesa said as Berit stopped halfway down the hall and opened a door for her, presumably the door to Berit's room.

Sigyn had to hurry to duck under the redhead's arm before she closed the door. It was a tight fit, and despite her best efforts she graced the nearly-overflowing bodice of Berit's gown. Berit stopped for a moment with a slightly distracted look, but then turned her attention back toward Aesa.

"I am going to warn you once and only once," she said. "Keep your hands off the prince. I did not hoof it here all the way from a little shack by the ruins of the wall just to have a powerless trollop like you steal the prince out from under me."

Aesa turned pink to the roots of her candle-flame hair. "The prince may choose whomever he likes," she said, a slight tremor in her voice.

"Can he?" challenged Berit. "Those don't seem to be the rules, do they? I've noticed that some of the best candidates seem to keep dropping dead."

Aesa's laugh held an edge of hysteria. "Do you threaten me?"

"Yes," said Berit bluntly. "You've seen what I can do. Do you really want to be my next performance?"

Heart pounding, Sigyn began edging toward the door.

Aesa's eyes brimmed with angry tears. "The prince would ruin you," she said. "He loves me. I just came from his arms, in fact."

Sigyn stopped, her blood running cold. Aesa moved red-gold curls aside from her throat to reveal a fresh bite mark visible even from Sigyn's vantage point. Sigyn suddenly found it hard to breathe.

"You BITCH!" Berit lifted her hands, fire crackling between them. The heat was so intense Sigyn could feel it from the door.

"No!" Sigyn shouted. Berit turned in alarm, fire still suspended between her hands.

Sigyn, invisible, threw open the door. "Aesa!" she cried. "Run!"

Berit let fly the fireball toward the sound of Sigyn's voice. Sigyn was too slow to step aside; the blistering bolt of energy glanced off of her chest to explode against the corridor wall outside. Sigyn's arcane cloak dropped as her uniform caught fire. Blind with pain and fear, she staggered down the now-smoldering hall toward the common room.

"Guards!" someone screamed. Sigyn heard footsteps, dozens of them from the sound of it, but her world was pain, her vision brown smoke. Steel-plated arms caught her before she realized she was falling. Was she dead, and in her father's embrace? It was her last thought before the pain swallowed her whole.

There was more pain to come, when she woke. The healers cleaned her burns, stretched the skin to avoid contractures as they accelerated its knitting. At last the pain faded, but the side of her throat remained marbled with smooth silver-pink scars, as did the entire span of her collarbone, most of one breast and one shoulder. The scars might fade a bit more in time, said the healers, but they would never go away. Berit had stolen her only beauty.

By the time Sigyn woke from the deep, healing sleep they induced afterward, it was nearly midnight. They gave her a fresh uniform and, at her insistence, a lightweight scarf to wrap around the part of her throat that was visible above the neckline. They advised that she return to her quarters until morning, but as soon as she emerged from the healing room she found Loki standing in the hall, still dressed in the same clothes.

He moved swiftly toward her, but she shied away. Loki hesitated, taken aback.

"The guards still search for Berit," he said after a moment. "They raised the drawbridge, moments after her attack. She cannot have left the palace grounds."

Sigyn nodded stiffly.

"Please walk with me," he said, and Sigyn obeyed. When she realized where he was taking her, she felt her eyes sting with tears.

He led her into the palace gardens and seated himself on a lamp-lit, sculpted stone bench, beneath a trellis adorned with moonflowers. She sat on the next bench, leaving distance between them, closing her eyes and inhaling the heady green scent of life.

"How bad is it?" he asked her. "May I see?"

"No."

Loki studied her with concern. "They will find her," he said. "She will pay."

"You deceived me," she said.

Loki straightened, looking confused. Then guilty understanding passed over his face, followed by earnest intensity. "No," he said. "Believe me when I say it was not my plan. I left to follow Jora, but I encountered Aesa and - I'm sorry. I was - sidetracked."

Sigyn grimaced, disgusted. "It is good I wore no lipstick she might have tasted upon you."

"Sigyn," said Loki, his tone gentle but firm. "Would you have me forsake other women?"

She turned her face away. "That would be awkward for the line of succession."

"That line is already broken; I am no son of Odin's. Answer me. Is that what you wish?"

Before Sigyn could reply, she saw a guard hurrying toward them, slightly out of breath. Loki adjusted his posture to something appropriately regal, Sigyn tried her best to disappear.

"Your Highness!" said the guard. "The sorceress has been caught and shackled!"

Loki rose from his bench, his eyes glittering beneath the silvery light of the garden lamps. When he spoke, he sounded nothing like the man who had brought her there. "Burn her alive," he said.

"But Your Highness-"

"Do not question my orders. While my father lies unconscious, I am king, and I say she will burn."

"She's immune to fire, Your Highness."

Loki let out a growl of frustration, beginning to pace. "Then listen to me, and listen well. You will bring her, bound, to to a basin of water. You will take a blade and cut her here." He slashed the side of his hand across his chest. "And here." He drew the hand across his forehead. "Then you will bend her over the basin so she may watch herself bleed. When the water is red as her hair, you will hold her head under it until she drowns. Leave her there until the flies find her, then dismember her body and drop it into the abyss."

The guard stared at Loki, color draining from his face. "Yes, Your Highness," he said, and hurried away.

Loki stood with his back to Sigyn, staring away into the moonlit garden.

"I am not certain that was necessary," said Sigyn faintly.

He turned to her. "You disapprove? After she orphaned a child and set you on fire?"

"I do not revel in the pain of any other being. To do so is a sign of sickness."

He recoiled slightly. "How fickle a thing your love is."

"I can love you and still think you unwell."

"Do you? Love me?" The plaintive uncertainty in his expression filled her with pity.

"I've told you so, yes."

He drew nearer to her bench. "Say it. Please."

"I love you."

"Say my name."

"Loki," she said. "I love you, Loki."

He closed his eyes for a moment, and when he opened them, he looked drugged.

"Why?" he said weakly. He lowered his gaze to her scarf-wrapped throat, then sank onto the bench beside her.

Sigyn sighed. "You are a brilliant man," she conceded, "and perceptive, and you feel deeply. You are farsighted, which is both your strength and weakness; you are often blind to the small things in your way. In your pain, you have done unspeakable things, but I believe you are not yet lost, and if you find your way, you will be the greatest king Asgard has ever known. If I had the power to redeem you once and for all, I would not hesitate, even if it cost me my life. But I would rather live, if only to have my tedious life occasionally brightened by your beauty."

"Beauty?" He raised his eyes to meet hers. "Is this flattery, or mockery?"

She smiled wryly at him. "Perhaps you are not the Aesir ideal," she admitted. "But there are as many kinds of beauty as there are eyes to see it, and to mine you are beautiful, Loki. Beautiful to shame the stars."

"Now I know you mock me." He took her hand, bringing it to his lips. When he lowered it his gaze lingered upon it, his thumb gently tracing her veins. "Tomorrow I am meant to announce the woman who will be my queen," he said. "If I were to choose you, what would you say?"

"That you should lie down until your fever passed."

"In earnest."

She studied his face, uneasy. "Until two nights ago, we'd never had a conversation."

"I could say the same of all these women. I know none of them as well as I know you."

"You know Aesa well enough."

He sat back a little, at that. His gaze on her was dark. "It was you I thought of today," he said.

"What?" Sigyn's hand twitched in his.

"I have done my best to respect you. You've spoken with dread of unwed mothers, and I know that you have been touched by no other. As it is, I worry that out of fear you have let me take more than you would otherwise give. So I have held back. But today I could not banish you from my thoughts, and when I saw Aesa-"

"Stop," said Sigyn. "Don't say it; it's horrid."

"It's horrid, that I want you?"

Sigyn pulled her hand from his. "That you would give her what was meant for me!" The words burst from her like poison; they shamed her. She covered her face with her hands.

Loki took her hand back, forcefully, and slipped off the bench to kneel before her in the grass. "Then promise me that I may give you everything. I am not my brother, collecting conquests. Had I one woman who would accept everything that I am, I would need no other. Will you be that woman?"

"You know I cannot."

It was as though she had slapped him. Clearly he had not been expecting her refusal, and was stunned past the point of guile or eloquence.

"You're delirious," she said gently; "you've not slept properly in days. You don't know what you're saying. Your brother was right. This is not about love for me; it is about contempt for yourself. And I deserve better than that."

"You. Deserve." He dropped her hand, standing slowly, his expression icy. "You deserve better. Than me."

"That's not-"

"Be silent!"

Sigyn cringed, wrapping her arms around herself protectively. As commanded, she held her tongue.

For a moment all she heard was his breathing, fast and ragged. Then he spoke, his voice trembling. "I see you are determined to make yourself a fool," he said. "Very well, you shall do so tomorrow for an audience. If you do not wish to explain to three hundred people why a prince is unworthy of you, I suggest you reconsider your answer." With that, he turned and strode off into the darkness.


	11. Forsaken

**Chapter Eleven - Forsaken**

* * *

In the morning a large, flat rectangular box appeared outside Sigyn's quarters. She and Katla opened it and found Sigyn's blue dress from the ball, newly pressed and folded, scattered with moonflowers. A small card lay tucked into the bodice of the dress.

"Wow," said Katla, her eyes wide with amazement. She examined the card, but she could not read it any more than Sigyn could. "Is this from Loki, do you think? That's... almost romantic."

"It is no such thing," Sigyn snapped. "It is mockery, laced with threat."

"Just in case," said Katla slyly, "will you let me do your hair?"

For more than two hours Sigyn sat through the ordeals of beauty, just as she had three days ago, but this time with no visceral quiver of suppressed excitement. She endured her grooming in the way a corpse would endure preparation for its funeral. The dress revealed far too much scarred flesh now, but the palace's fast-gossiping network of servants was able to turn up a lace shawl that could be pinned in such a way as to hide the worst of it.

Sigyn waited until the last possible moment before making her way to the cozy reception hall on the second floor where the betrothal announcement was to take place. She slipped in at the back of the room just as the crowd was beginning to quiet, and leaned against the wall rather than taking a seat. The audience numbered somewhere between two and three hundred. All of the remaining women were present, along with their families and, to Sigyn's surprise, Thor and his brown-haired mortal.

At the stroke of noon Loki appeared on the stage with a faint crackling buzz and a wash of green light; he had obviously been cloaked there for some time, watching.

"Welcome, family and friends," he said. "Thank you for coming today to share this joyous occasion. After our recent tragedies it pleases me to at last be the bearer of good news. Sigyn Eiriksdottir, please come forward."

The audience's collective murmur was like the rush and hiss of icy water. Numb with dread, Sigyn gathered her skirt and advanced down the center aisle to ascend the stage. Loki lightly took her gloved hand to assist her to his side.

"I am sure that you remember Sigyn Eiriksdottir," he said. "The young woman who had such eloquent things to say at the presentation ceremony?"

Sigyn stared at her feet and prayed that he would not draw this out.

"I have never known such a transformation," he said grandly, "as that which has occurred in this young woman's heart. You saw her contempt three days ago, but now? Tell them, Sigyn. Tell them what you've told me."

Even if Sigyn had wanted to speak, her mouth would have been too dry to allow it.

"She's shy," said Loki warmly. "The poor creature. But she was not so shy last night, were you, sweet lady? What was it you said? That I would be the finest king Asgard had ever seen? That you would lay down your life for me? That my beauty rivaled the stars?"

A few of the women in the audience tried, unsuccessfully, to stifle laughter. Sigyn continued to stare at the floor.

"You said these things, did you not?"

"I did."

"And what else did you say? Tell them. Did you not say that you loved me?"

"I did."

Now a few women gasped, and someone laughed unashamedly aloud.

"How ambitious, the reach of this one's heart!" said Loki playfully. "Imagine it: Queen Sigyn of Asgard. How creative her portrait-painter would have to be. How charmingly our queen would her abandon her chair in the middle of a peace summit to refill all the empty cups! What confidence she would inspire when staring at an urgent missive as though it were Midgard heiroglyphs. Truly she would be the stuff of which legends are forged."

There was more laughter now, mixed with low murmurs of disapproval. The audience shifted so restlessly she could hear the creaking of their chairs.

"But I should not mock such a courageous soul. Let her serve instead as a testament to the power of diplomacy. Asgard need never go to war again! Give me but three days with my worst enemies, and I shall have them ready to lay down their lives for me. That will be all, Sigyn, thank you."

Somehow Sigyn was able to get her legs to work again. This time Loki did not offer her his hand, and on her way down the steps, she stumbled and nearly fell.

"And now," said Loki blithely behind her, "without further ado I present to you Aesa Grimsdottir, my betrothed, and the next Queen of Asgard."

Without realizing it, Sigyn had sped her steps, and by the time she passed through the back doors of the reception hall, she was running.

* * *

The garden was warmer, in daylight. Not only in temperature, but in color; the daylilies had opened their throats in shades of crimson and orange and gold; honeyed light poured through fruit-heavy trees to dapple the grass. Sigyn let the sun warm her hair as she sat on a bench with her face in her hands, hollow and spent from weeping.

"I know you."

The voice was deep and warm, and she knew it at once. She lifted her head, then scrambled from the bench to give her deepest curtsey.

"Your Hi-" She hesitated. Was Thor still a prince?

Loki's brother ran a hand back sheepishly through his golden mane. "Thor will do. And you are called Sigyn? I almost did not recognize you in your finery, but that speech you made in the hallway outside the Raven Room, I will not soon forget. You have my respect, lady Sigyn. You have been a patient friend to Loki, and he has few enough of them."

Sigyn's eyes filled with tears.

"Ah, my lady." Thor started toward her, then stopped, lacing his hands behind his back. "He can be cruel, my brother. Most of all to those he loves."

Sigyn looked away, returning to her bench, and Thor took the one nearest to her. He looked as though he had more to say, but was not certain of his words. They sat for a moment in awkward silence.

"What is a tanner fork rail?" Sigyn said at last.

Thor blinked; then understanding dawned in his eyes. "You overheard."

"He would not explain."

Thor exhaled, leaning forward to rest his forearms on his knees and lace his thick fingers together. "The Tana Fork," he said, looking at his hands. "The river around which the Vanir dwell. At one place its rapids have carved a deep canyon into the rock, and a rope bridge crosses it. As a great heavy blundering young boy, that bridge was the one thing I feared."

Sigyn smiled a little. "That is difficult to imagine."

He returned her smile wholeheartedly. "I dragged Loki there every chance I got," he said. "I was determined to conquer it. I crossed that wretched thing again and again, crawling and keening like a wounded bilgesnipe while it rocked and swayed fit to drop me in the water."

"You poor dear."

"And Loki, damn him. He would trip across it light as a bird on a branch, and his hand would lightly tap, tap, tap along the rail. I accused him of taunting me, touching the rail only to show me that he was not using it to keep his balance."

"I would not doubt that."

Thor shook his head, gazing at a patch of golden lilies. "He told me the truth of it; I think my fear moved him to honesty. I never forgot what he said, because those moments between us were so rare. 'Brother,' he said, 'You are right; I can balance without the rail. But I only have the courage to cross if I remind myself that it is there.'"

Sigyn sat up straight, watching Thor.

"I use that phrase now to mean many things. Sometimes to remind him that we have not always been at odds. Sometimes to refer to our mother. When she died - I thought that was why he sacrificed himself. Because without her he no longer had the courage to move forward."

"I should not pity him," said Sigyn miserably, "but I do."

Thor looked over at her, eyes gentle. "I know not the truth of his feelings for you, Sigyn Eiriksdottir, but I know one thing. I know that when you served us in the sunroom, he touched you just as he touched that rail."

Sigyn had thought her tears were spent, but some new wellspring opened up inside her. She did not even bother to wipe them away.

"Perhaps my brother is beyond hope," said Thor, his voice like a distant storm. "I cannot say. But I have known him all my life, and these past two years are not the man I know."

"What could change a man so completely?"

"He has always courted trouble. But two years ago he learned that he had been lied to all his life by those he loved most. That he was not of our blood, not even of our race, but something all of us had been raised to think of as a monster. Not only that, but he had come to us because his true parents had forsaken him, had found him wanting and left him to die."

Sigyn squeezed her eyes shut against the sudden pain in her chest.

"So I do not believe that anything my brother has done since then reflects his true nature. Until two years ago he was a rascal, an egoist and a liar, but at heart a good man."

Sigyn laughed bitterly, then pulled aside her shawl to give Thor a glimpse of her throat. "Until a day ago," she said, "I was a woman without scars. Life marks us."

"Ah, but you see," said Thor, his voice soft with sympathy, "I do not believe my brother is scarred. I believe he is still bleeding."

* * *

It was with a sense of finality that Sigyn folded her blue dress and tucked it away. When she opened the box she saw the little card that had been tucked into it, lying there among wilting white flowers.

Sigyn lifted the card and stared at it, as though the bold black symbols would somehow mysteriously resolve themselves into an answer. But they did not, and she would not take the card to some highborn to open herself up to further mockery. She tucked it into the pocket of her apron and returned to work.

Aesa had been given her own suite on the third floor, which Sigyn could not help but notice was conveniently near to Loki's. Sigyn moved quickly through the hall with the tea tray the future queen had requested and rapped lightly on the suite door.

Aesa opened it at once and showed Sigyn to a small table near the bed. "Set the things here, if you would."

"As you wish, my lady," said Sigyn, carefully placing the tray and avoiding Aesa's eye.

"I have something for you," said Aesa quietly. "That is why I asked for you in particular."

Sigyn looked up at her in confusion. "I'm sorry?"

Aesa moved round the table to stand in front of Sigyn, hands clasped beseechingly. "They told me that you are the one who saved my life. And then - what Loki did to you this morning! I almost went after you, but I was afraid to cause a scene."

"You owe me nothing," said Sigyn. "Not even a thought."

Aesa reached for Sigyn's hands, and when she took them, Sigyn was surprised by a flutter of warmth low in her belly.

_Loki._ It had to be. No one else's touch evoked that sort of response. What new madness had he concocted?

"All the same," said Aesa sweetly, "let me at least give you this." And leaned in to kiss her on the mouth.

It was a polite kiss, almost sisterly, but it surprised Sigyn with a sharp pang of want. As Aesa drew back Sigyn followed her, chasing her lips, then stopped, shocked at herself.

"Loki?" Sigyn gasped.

"He won't mind," Aesa said with a smile. "I think he'd like for us to be friendly." Aesa slipped her arms around Sigyn's waist. Sigyn felt an instinctive aversion to the pliant feel of the other woman's body, yet at the same time she was flooded with a sudden need to be touched, touched intimately, touched _now_. She inhaled sharply and pulled away.

"He said you were shy," Aesa said. "But he likes you very much, and so do I. Come back sometime, won't you?"

"Yes, my lady." Sigyn hurried from the room. As she fled down the hall, she spotted Loki approaching the suite; he stopped in stark bewilderment to watch her pass.

_What just happened?_ Sigyn thought to herself in a panic, hurrying by and avoiding his gaze. _Have I gone mad?_

No. It was Aesa. It had to be.

If she had some magical allure, it would explain Loki's seemingly insatiable hunger for a woman who otherwise had little to recommend her. It would explain why Sigyn, who had never felt the slightest attraction to women, had all but swooned in her arms. Why she was still tempted to go back and kiss her again - perhaps this time with Loki watching.

A splash of cold water was all she needed. She hurried through the kitchens toward her quarters, but bumped into Valda on the way.

"Oh, goodness!" the old woman said, grabbing Sigyn's arms to steady her. "Are you all right?"

"Yes, I'm fine," said Sigyn. "Just a bit under the weather."

"I'll say, you poor girl," said Valda, laying a hand on Sigyn's forehead. "You should lie down. You're positively burning up."

Sigyn stepped back, looked at Valda in horror. "Find Katla," she said. "I know who killed all those women." She backed up another step, leaning against the kitchen wall, trembling convulsively with fright. "And hurry. I have little time left to explain."


	12. Burned

**Chapter Twelve - Burned**

* * *

"I'm here, I'm here," Sigyn heard Katla say as the young woman hastened around the corner of a drying rack to take Sigyn's hands. When Katla felt how hot Sigyn was, her face blanched. "Let's go to our room," she said, glancing around at the kitchen staff, who worked on obliviously.

The cramped sleeping space was strangely comforting, but it was not where Sigyn had hoped to die. By the time they sat on the bed Katla was already weeping.

"This is what happened to the others, isn't it," she said.

"It's Aesa," said Sigyn urgently. "Aesa's the killer; you can't let her become queen. I want you to take over the investigation; you'll have to explain to Loki why." Her heart twisted. "I don't know if he will even care, but if he seems upset, please tell him that I forgive him."

"Oh fate help us," sobbed Katla, "this can't be happening!"

"Please, Katla. I don't know how long I have. I love you like a sister, and Valda like a mother. Tell her I said so. Valda can tell you where I keep my savings. You can have all of it, but please don't spend it until you retire. Promise me."

"I promise." Katla wrapped her arms around Sigyn.

"You might not want to do that," said Sigyn, trembling. "This could be bloody."

Katla pulled back and pressed her knuckles to her mouth, her expression twisting between grief and horror. At last she gingerly took Sigyn's hands. "Does it hurt?"

"Not yet," said Sigyn.

But it was horrible. Every twitch in her muscles, every turn of her stomach made her wonder, _is this the moment? Is this when something inside me ruptures, and my life ends? Will I be with my father again, or have I not done enough to deserve his afterlife?_

Worst of all, her traitorous mind kept returning to Loki, even after what he had done. If he did still care for her, this would be yet another wound for him to bear. What had he written on that card? What if it had been a declaration of love? An apology?

She sat in silence, holding Katla's hands, for she knew not how long. Then Valda's head appeared in the doorway.

"Katla, darling," she said, cheerfully unaware of the situation's gravity, "unless you're holding Sigyn's head over a bowl you ought to get back to work."

Katla gave Sigyn a pained look. Sigyn considered, then squeezed her hands. "I shall see if I can make it to the healers," she said. "Spread the word among the servants; put the speed of gossip to good use. Let every invisible person in this palace be your eyes and ears. Aesa cannot be allowed to become Queen of Asgard."

* * *

To Sigyn's surprise, she made it to the sterile golden haven of the healing rooms with all of her organs intact, and was even forced to submit to the indignity of undressing for chilly-palmed Healer Linnhild during the examination. Afterward Sigyn dressed and waited for either death or test results.

When Linnhild returned, she looked vexed and baffled. "It's the same as the prince," she said. "You're feverish, with nothing to show for why."

Sigyn's muscles went lax with relief. Linnhild was right; Loki had carried a fever for days without dying. Could it be a side effect of Aesa's seductions? Perhaps the woman hadn't been trying to harm her. Perhaps she had only meant to please Loki by opening their marriage to a paramour who posed no threat.

Sigyn had never been happier to be underestimated.

"Is it possible," Sigyn asked Linnhild, "that a fever could be caused by magic?"

Linnhild scratched her head, disturbing her short sandy curls. "I wouldn't think so," she said. "Fever is something the mind does in response to foreign agents in the blood."

"Suppose someone had a way of channeling dark energy into another person's veins?"

Linnhild looked taken aback. "If that were possible we'd know; someone with that kind of power could rule the nine worlds. He could kill anyone he wished almost instantly."

Sigyn shuddered. "By bursting his heart, perhaps? Aneurism in the brain? Drowning in blood?"

The healer stared at Sigyn, face ashen. She shook her head slowly. "No, that's just mad." But the fear in her eyes said _yes_. "It's far more likely it's some sort of infection. Something in the environment we've not yet isolated."

"Did you see the three women's bodies?"

"I only saw one of them, miss, the one with the aneurism, but they'll all have reports."

"Is there any way I could borrow them?"

"Not without a royal warrant. That needs the All-father's seal; even the prince couldn't get one with the king so ill. If the king dies, Loki could give you a warrant, but right now we're effectively kingless. Give those papers up without a warrant and I lose my job."

"It's all right," Sigyn said in a reassuring tone, while inside she burned with frustration. There was no help for it; she would have to go to Loki.

* * *

This time Gunnar flatly refused to pass along her message, so Sigyn was forced to lurk in the third-floor hall until Loki emerged from his chambers for supper. When he did, she moved quickly to intercept him. He attempted to veer around her, but she rushed directly into his path, forcing him to stop.

"Are you mad?" said Loki, looking down at her with eyes blazing. "Did I not remind you of your place once already this afternoon?"

"Loki, I know you're angry, but you must listen to me; it's important."

"Important!" He laughed coldly. "This was my error: letting you labor too long under the delusion that a scab-handed kitchen drudge and her vapid prattling could have any relevance. You've served your purpose, now begone."

"Your Highness, I implore you to-"

"Do you still believe you can win my heart?" he said acidly. "That you can lure me away from a woman who is your superior not only in breeding but in beauty and charm? Do you still believe that this fairy tale ends with the two of us cantering off into the sunset?"

"Ugh!" The sound ripped from her with such venomous disgust that Loki actually halted his tirade, taken aback. "You have no idea, do you," Sigyn spat, "how utterly you have burned that particular bridge. My heart is not so fickle as yours, but love does not blind me to the fact that you are _vile_. Even a kitchen drudge ought to have more pride than to link her fate to a rapacious, narcissistic sadist who destroys everything he touches. I am not trying to woo you, I am trying to _save_ you from-"

"You are _finished!_" Loki interrupted in a roar that reverberated down the hall. "Not another word. Since you cannot learn your place, I shall take it from you. You are no longer in my employ, you noisome little maggot. You have until sundown to take your leave of the palace. Return, and you will face the executioner's axe."

Sigyn had thought there was nothing left he could do to hurt her, but as he pushed past her and swept away down the hall, she felt her life fall into pieces like a dropped puzzle. Her father's piece there, Katla's and Valda's there, fragments of the garden and the crystal bridge and her small, warm bed. And hopelessly scattered among all of it, her plans to bring Aesa to justice.

* * *

Sigyn's heart was eased slightly upon returning to the kitchens and finding the entire staff gossiping and speculating on different ways they might turn up information. They were stunned to find that Sigyn still alive, but at the news of her termination their joy turned to outrage and grief.

Although grateful for their sympathies, Sigyn preferred to make her preparations alone. There was not much to pack; she only had two sets of clothes that did not belong to the palace, and she had never collected personal possessions.

As she began to remove her uniform to change into her personal clothing, she came across the small card she had placed into her apron pocket. She stared at it again, her hand trembling. Was it a final taunt? An apology? A confession? What if it changed the meaning of everything that had taken place? What if it somehow, miraculously, made everything all right? Foolish fantasy that it was, it ate away at her.

When she crossed paths with palace courier Vilmund on her way to the upper floors she stopped him, setting down her bags. "Excuse me, Vilmund," she said. "Can you read something for me?"

"Sigyn Eiriksdottir," the courier said with a grin. "You're quite the hero among the palace staff. Is this part of your investigation?"

"I'm not sure, but just in case, I need your confidentiality." She withdrew the card and held it out to him.

"If I couldn't keep secrets," said Vilmund, "I wouldn't have a job."

He took the card from her, scanned it briefly with a look of disappointment, then read it aloud: "This card must go in the bouquet at your earliest opportunity. Motherwort, nine pink carnations. Ask Jora." He shrugged and handed it back. "Anything else I can do for you?"

Sigyn stared at the card for a moment, baffled, then looked back to the courier. "Possibly," she said. "The healers have official reports of the women's deaths. If you can find someone who could access or even steal them temporarily, and deliver them to Katla for safekeeping, Asgard would be in your debt."

"I shall do my best," said Vilmund.

Sigyn feared that a detour to the guest quarters might attract unwanted attention, but she decided it was worth the risk. She pulled the hood of her cloak up over her head to obscure her identity and hurried across the crystal bridge to find Jora.

The western corridor leading from the common room was still scorched and blackened from Berit's arcane fury; the smell made Sigyn's stomach turn over. The scars on her throat and chest tingled as though they had their own memory. Jora stood in the center of the common room, arranging flowers in a vase.

"My lady," said Sigyn, "forgive me, but I've been instructed to ask you something."

Jora turned, one graceful brow arching, and looked down at Sigyn. She was taller than Sigyn had realized, and frankly a little intimidating. Sigyn handed her the card shyly.

Jora perused it, then looked gravely at Sigyn. "Who gave you this?"

"I would rather not say."

"It would help me to know," she said. "This is an attempt at floriography, but the sender has left ambiguity. I can see two possible meanings, depending upon context. Was this from a friend, or someone in Asgardian security?"

"Let us suppose it were the latter."

Jora nodded curtly and handed back the card. "I suspected as much. In that case the card holds a concealed message, and you are meant to deliver it into my uncle Heimdall's possession."

Sigyn's jaw dropped. "Heimdall is your uncle?"

"Not precisely; it's complicated. But I know him well enough, and I would wager he can see something on this card that others cannot."

Sigyn felt a rush of excitement. "Thank you, my lady." She turned to go, then stopped and turned back to Jora curiously. "What if it were a message from a friend?"

"Then your friend is in love with you, and overwhelmed with gratitude, and goes to positively byzantine lengths not to mention any of this in words."

* * *

Sigyn informed her new army of servants that she was headed to the Himinbjorg observatory, and that urgent messages could be sent to her there until they heard otherwise. With no further delay, she left the palace and spent a sizable chunk of her life-savings to hire a swift two-horse coach.

When the white coach-horses left the heart of the city and cantered onto the Bifrost, their hooves struck iridescent sparks. The abyss between worlds stretched out in its infinite blackness around and beneath, like black velvet scattered with diamond dust. Sigyn shivered, pulling her cloak tighter around herself in awe. Heimdall's observatory was even more magnificent since its rebuilding, like a gleaming golden world all its own. The coach stopped at a respectful distance, and Sigyn alighted from it with a frightful sense of her own pettiness.

Heimdall stood outside the observatory waiting in his great lyriform helmet, tall and still as a statue, hands resting upon his staff. As Sigyn timidly approached, horses stamping and blowing behind her, the man's tawny gaze betrayed no surprise.

"Sigyn Eiriksdottir," he said. "Show me your message."

Sigyn retrieved the card from the pocket of her cloak and shyly held it out to him. He took it from her, held it up, and gazed not at but somehow through it, his expression as blank as though he were blind.

"This message is not for me," he said. "It is for you."

"What - what does it say?" She was embarrassed at the way her voice shook.

"I fear Aesa is the one responsible," he read aloud. "I have done what I can to pacify her and to protect you. The wedding is in two days. You must find proof before then without my help. I have faith in you."

Sigyn's knees went out from under her, and she crumpled upon the glassy, shimmering surface of the Bifrost at Heimdall's feet.

"A heavy burden for one so small," said Heimdall in his resonant voice, looking down at her.

Sigyn looked up at him plaintively. "Is there anything you can do to help?"

"I cannot abandon my post," he said, "but if the safety of the realm is at stake I can share with you what I have seen and heard."

"What do you know of Aesa Grimsdottir?"

"Very little," he said. "She has never drawn my notice. I know more of her grandfather, General Snorri Half-Bear, who was victorious at the Battle of the Red Sands in the first great Vanir war. It was his victory that raised her line to nobility."

"Red Sands? Where is that?"

"It is not the name of a place, but of an event. The Vanir had nearly routed our armies, when suddenly every shallow wound the Aesir weapons inflicted began to bleed as though they had opened flesh and bone. The pale sand beneath the enemy's feet ran red and the Vanir fell upon it down to the last man."

Sigyn looked up at Heimdall in horror. "What magic was this?"

"Half-Bear refused to say, and its like has never been seen since."

Sigyn scrambled shakily to her feet, her breath quickening with excitement. "Does he still live?"

"He is a mere shadow, but yes. In the northwest portion of the city. It is a long journey, but tell your driver that I have sent you on an errand, and he will charge you nothing."

"Thank you," said Sigyn. "Oh, thank you, Heimdall. I shall find some way to repay you."

"If you can keep the throne of Asgard free of murderers and deceivers, that will be thanks enough. I have seen enough of that sort of madness for one lifetime."


	13. In the End

This got crazy long - sorry guys. But here of all places, I didn't want to skimp on words. Very nervous, and hope it satisfies.

* * *

**Chapter Thirteen - In the End**

* * *

General Snorri Half-Bear lived in the remotest craggy reaches of Asgard; it took several hours and a change of horses just to reach the base of the mountain road that led to his estate. Once there, the driver halted at a public stable and instructed Sigyn to hire a pony to take her the rest of the way up the steep and narrow trail.

Sigyn's riding experience consisted of broomstick horses in childhood, and though she was able to bunch her skirt up enough to allow her to sit astride the placid mount the stablemaster chose for her, the saddle and the animal's warm bristly hide chafed terribly. By the time the pony had struggled to the summit of the tortuous road and arrived at Half-Bear Estate in the wee hours, the insides of Sigyn's legs were blistered and raw.

The estate stablemaster came to meet her and helped her to dismount. Bowlegged, sore, and exhausted, Sigyn all but collapsed in his arms. "I must see General Half-Bear as soon as possible," she said, showing him the golden token Heimdall had given her. "I've an urgent matter of realm security for his ears alone."

The stablemaster eyed her. "I'm not certain he's the general for the job," said the stablemaster. "At any rate, you'll see no one this time of night. Have the butler show you to the guest quarters and you'll see him when he wakes."

It was nearly dawn, so Sigyn relented, but she discovered the next day that General Half-Bear was not an early riser. It was well past lunch before the disgruntled butler escorted her to the general's chambers.

In a chair by a roaring fireplace sat a gaunt old man wrapped in more furs than she'd have thought necessary in the wastes of Jotunheim. He stared at her with uncaring sunken eyes.

"General Half-Bear," said Sigyn, dropping a deep curtsey. "I come urgently seeking help."

The general scratched his chest and stared. Sigyn took a quick assessment of his bleary, uninterested gaze and decided that bluntness would serve best.

"Three women are dead at the palace, and I believe your granddaughter may have slain them with some sort of - blood magic."

"Aesa?" Half-Bear coughed wetly into his fist. "Giant's breath. Poor darling girl couldn't magic her way out of a burlap sack. Too busy chasing boys. And girls. And dogs and mules, more than likely." But he wouldn't look at Sigyn.

"General," she said sternly. "I am here on behalf of Heimdall and of the crown." She showed him the golden token. "If you are withholding anything, it could mean the ruin of your name, the loss of your estate - fate only knows what Prince Loki might dream up for you personally."

"Do not threaten me, girl," the General wheezed. "My Aesa may have a bit of talent, but she has never used it for anything but pitching tents in young men's trousers. If there is evil at the palace, you should turn your eyes toward that serpent who steals the throne. You will not place the blame upon that sweet girl, nor upon my house. Begone."

"General -"

"I said _begone_!"

Sigyn backed up a step at his vehemence. The butler was already advancing on her to none-too-gently escort her from the room. "Have a pleasant journey back to the palace," he said in saccharine tones. "Please let us know if there's anything else we can do to assist the crown."

Sigyn walked stiffly to the estate stables to collect her mount, limbs heavy with disappointment. As she tried to boost herself into the saddle, pain lanced through her thighs and groin; her body had not yet forgiven her for the previous night's abuse. She groaned and leaned against the pony's side, closing her eyes against the tears that wet her lashes.

_Fates of Past, Present, and Future_, she prayed silently, _I turn myself over into your hands. Save the crown of Asgard from this woman's treachery, and I shall be your instrument forever._

"Sigyn? Is that you?"

Sigyn straightened at once and turned to see the courier who had read her card at the palace, approaching the stable on a frothing black pony. "I came as fast as I could," he said. "I have your reports! Five of us were sacked in the process, but here they are." He dismounted with enviable ease and waved a thick envelope at her.

Sigyn let out a breathless laugh, then limped to him and threw her arms around him.

"Easy now," he said, but he returned the hug before pulling back to tie his pony on the nearby hitching post. "The reports are thorough," he said. "But I am not sure how they incriminate Aesa."

"Leave that to me," said Sigyn, and took him by the wrist, tugging him back toward the estate.

* * *

General Snorri Half-Bear looked over the reports one by one, and every line drained a new shade of color from his face. When he was finished he put a hand to his eyes, holding out the papers wordlessly to the courier who had accompanied Sigyn.

"General," said Sigyn gently, "this does not reflect badly upon you. In fact, if you can write a statement attesting to your granddaughter's - gifts, and we can present it with these reports, you will once again be doing a great service to the people of Asgard."

He lowered his hand from his face, looking at Sigyn with defeated eyes. "Yes," he said bitterly. "Allow me once again to sell my soul for the good of Asgard. Very well then, give me an hour, and you shall have your bloody statement."

The staff were kind enough to serve Sigyn and the courier tea while they waited, as afternoon was beginning to shade into evening, and the courier had not eaten all day. When the requisite hour had passed, the butler took them back upstairs and let them into the master suite.

General Snorri Half-Bear swung black-faced from the rafters, one of his belts knotted about his neck. A statement lay on his desk, ink scarcely dry.

Sigyn wilted back against the wall, staring up in horror at the General's distorted visage. As the butler cried out for the staff's assistance, the courier leaned over the desk and began to read the statement aloud in a flat, tremulous voice.

_ I, Snorri Olafson, called Half-Bear, celebrated General of the Asgardian Armed Forces, was born cursed with the power to move the blood in men's veins as a moon moves the tides. I should have taken my own life after the Battle of the Red Sands, when I saw what desperation led me to do there. But I fooled myself that I was man enough to fight temptation, that I could forswear the curse the fates placed upon me. In the end it was blood that betrayed me. _

_My granddaughter, Aesa Grimsdottir, showed signs of this gift in adolescence. In an act of misguided love I protected her from knowledge of the evil ways in which it might be used. Now three women who stood as her rivals have died in a way I recognize well: bodies heated to fight off the invasion of her presence, veins' flow altered to rupture and destroy the flesh. I thought if I never taught her to use the gift this way, I would save her from its maddening lure, but I underestimated her, and now three innocent souls are dead. This added blood on my hands is more than I can bear._

_She has tasted the power now, and she lacks my will. For all the love I bear her, there is evil enough already in the house of Odin. You must destroy her before she is the ruin of us all._

* * *

The wedding of Aesa Grimsdottir and Crown Prince Loki of Asgard was held at the Grand Aesir Stadium, a realm landmark that seated nearly ten thousand people. Great arching rows of cushioned benches formed a near-semicircle around the raised round platform in the center. Ancient masters of magic had woven an enchantment into the white marble so that a man on the stage need not even raise his voice to be heard by every soul within its pillared bounds.

By the time Sigyn had ridden and limped her way to the stadium, the High Justiciar had begun the wedding ceremony, and the stadium was packed with Asgard's elite. Because of mixed sentiments about the prince and the prevalence of magic among the highborn who filled the seats, an intimidating number of guards paced the aisles with long-range weapons and sorcery-quelling shackles hanging ready from their belts.

Though it was not traditional, the palace servants and menial staff had been invited to attend the royal wedding as well. They stood crowded in the empty section between the stadium seats and the stage, craning their necks up to see the bride and groom. Guards barred them from approaching the steps that led to the stage.

Sigyn could hear the officiant's droning speech about unity and fidelity as she approached the pair of guards who flanked the west entrance to the stadium.

"I have urgent information for the High Justiciar," she said, waving the envelope containing the medical reports and the general's suicide note.

"I don't know if you've noticed," said the younger guard dryly, "but he's a little busy at the moment."

"That's the urgency," said Sigyn, exasperated. "I am Sigyn Eiriksdottir, I have come all the way from Half-Bear Estate to STOP this wedding, and I swear by all that is holy that I shall SMASH the next roadblock in my way."

The guards stared at her, flabbergasted, and then the elder of them cleared his throat. "Eirik's daughter," he murmured to his companion. Then to Sigyn, kindly, "May I see the envelope?"

"Of course."

The guard took it from her and opened it, pulling out the general's statement. He scanned it, then quickly slipped the papers back inside and handed them to Sigyn, white-faced. "Go," he said. "I'll mobilize the guards."

Sigyn dashed through the entrance and into the servants' section of the audience. Murmurs of excitement greeted her, and her friends parted as best they could to accommodate her.

The gold-robed Justiciar stood between Loki in his full royal regalia and Aesa in a white bridal gown. Her train was folded behind her several times and still draped all the way down the eastern steps. Sigyn wove her way through the crowd toward the stage. The guards on the steps, at some signal from their brethren, had already begun to move, and to the bewilderment of the Justiciar they climbed the stage to seize the bride.

"What is this?" she cried as they twisted her hands behind her and shackled her to strip her of her powers.

"I suspect," said the guard, "that you would not have us announce the allegations _here_." To the Justiciar he gestured with his head toward Sigyn and added, "This woman brings the charges."

Aesa's eyes filled with tears of rage, but she did not struggle. Her train caused such complications that at last one of the guards severed it with his sword. This, of all things, set her to screaming as they dragged her away.

Hesitantly Sigyn ascended the steps to the stage; a pair of guards hovered nearby but did not stop her as she held the envelope out toward the High Justiciar. He opened it, and an awkward hiatus ensued as he frowned and looked over the papers.

Sigyn dared a glance at Loki, and found his gaze fixed upon her. Beneath the menacing curved horns of his ceremonial helmet, the raw gratitude in his eyes made her heart kick painfully against her chest.

The Justiciar finally put the papers away. "Would you like to close the ceremony, Highness?" he muttered. "Or shall I?"

"I would like to say a few words," said Loki. His voice was velvet-soft, but ancient magic carried it to the very back of the stadium.

The High Justiciar bowed deeply, then descended from the stage, leaving Sigyn standing awkwardly in front of the prince wondering if she should have followed. Something in his gaze told her otherwise.

"There will be no wedding today," Loki announced needlessly to the audience. And then, inexplicably: "Guards, please bind me as well."

A murmur rose from the crowd. Bewildered, a nearby guard approached Loki, who held out his wrists for the shackles.

His royal finery dissolved as his magic was neutralized, leaving him standing bareheaded in his calf-length coat and leathers. He inclined his head gratefully to the guard, then stepped forward to stand in front of Sigyn. He was tall enough that all of the audience save the servants could still see his face clearly over her. When he spoke, he seemed to address her directly, though his voice carried over the crowd.

"I was born the son of Laufey, king of the frost giants," he said. The audience came alive with whispers. "He abandoned me," he continued undaunted, "and Odin All-father took pity upon me, raising me as his own. Two years ago I found out my true parentage, and in my pain and rage I betrayed both of my fathers, nearly bringing ruin to both worlds."

He raised his eyes to address the audience over Sigyn's head. "This woman, Sigyn Eiriksdottir, who just saved Asgard from an elusive and terrible threat, lost her own father to my treachery. And his blood is but one drop in the tide that stains my hands."

The hissing of the audience became a low murmur, uneasy and dangerous.

"I sacrificed myself on the plains of Svartalfheim. But no sooner had I washed myself in that absolution than I plunged myself back into the morass of deception. In my cowardice I deceived my father, and the pain broke his heart. He died of grief in my arms, and I have been posing as him ever since."

The stadium echoed with scattered cries of outrage.

"Yes," Loki said with a faint, empty smile. "It is true. I am no king. Odin never passed the throne to me."

For a moment the crowd's angry tumult drowned out anything he might have said. He stood, waiting, until the audience's morbid curiosity quieted them, then addressed Sigyn once again.

"In posing as my father," he said, "I was forced to speak as though I possessed his wisdom. His voice freed me to utter words that I already knew in my heart: that he had been a true father to me, that he had tried his best to give me all that I needed to rule. It was I who chose to cast it away."

He raised his eyes once again to the audience. "Inheritance is not an accident of blood," he said. "It is a legacy of knowledge. Even if you were to allow me to remain on the throne, I would force no Aesir woman to bear a frost giant's child for the sake of a succession already broken. If I marry," and here his eyes lowered to Sigyn for a moment, "it would be for love, as my father did."

Sigyn felt her skin prickle with goosebumps; Loki raised his eyes again to the audience.

"For as my father did, I have found a young boy of great power, forsaken by fate. If you will allow me, I shall pass to Falgeirr Dagnyson the wisdom of Odin All-Father, as though he were my own son. I shall guard the throne for him until he has earned it, and at that time I shall pass the rule of Asgard back into the hands of the Aesir, where it belongs."

The audience erupted, but this time the shock and outrage was mixed with elation, even adoration. Loki lifted his bound wrists, holding both forefingers to his lips. The audience quieted, and when the prince spoke again, his voice held a bitter edge.

"Have a care," he said. "You look upon a man who has killed hundreds if not thousands of innocents to spend his childish rage. This is not a sin that can be washed away; it will mark my soul forever. I am every inch a liar, a thief, and a coward. It may well be that my rightful place is in a prison cell, or in the grave. But it is not mine to decide. People of Asgard-"

He hesitated, and his next words were so faint, so defeated, that even with the stadium's magic they were lost to those in the furthest rows.

"-I am yours," he said, gazing directly at Sigyn. "Do with me as you will."

Sigyn had never known how heavy the silence of ten thousand people could be. But she no longer felt their eyes upon her; she saw only Loki, head uncovered and bowed, waiting for Asgard's verdict. Her love for him rushed through her in a terrible flood, and she knew that even if his people united in their condemnation, there would never be a greater king than the one who ruled Asgard in that brief silence.

Crossing her arm over her heart, Sigyn knelt.

There was nothing between Sigyn and her king but air; ten thousand of Asgard's elite were at her back. Her friends had to tell her, later, how her army of palace servants followed her cue, how ripples of reverence expanded from her to encompass the entire front section of the stadium.

They told her how the highborn in the front rows - seeing how the people in Loki's nearest service were so willing to swear their fealty - were moved to slip from their seats to take a knee as well. How those in the rows behind them yielded to the tide, how a great wave of obeisance radiated over the crowd from where Loki stood, until ten thousand souls knelt before their shackled king.

Her friends had to tell her all of this, because in that moment - in a moment that would be remembered by thousands - all she saw were Loki's eyes, and all he saw were hers.

***THE END***


	14. Epilogue & Author Notes

By popular demand, a brief epilogue. Also, some notes regarding the future.

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**Epilogue**

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Nothing moved at Thorn-Helm Estate but for the wind; even the horses slept soundly in their stalls. Sigyn, pleasantly tired from her work in the estate gardens, sat on the low rock wall that marked their northern border, gazing up into the last stars. Soon she would wake Katla to start breakfast preparations, but for now she centered herself with a moment of solitude.

Jora had asked her father, Sveinn Thorn-Helm, to hire the palace staff who had lost their positions at the palace during the chaos of the royal betrothal. He had relented, sending those they replaced to work for Vilmund the Winged, as Sigyn's newly-ennobled courier friend was now known. Royal messengers had come to Thorn-Helm looking for Sigyn as well, with the news that an estate had been offered to her. At Sigyn's request Jora had lied to them, saying she had no idea of the former palace servant's whereabouts.

Sveinn's household was a warm, welcoming place, and two months' time had helped Sigyn to settle, to feel at home. Her nightmares had stopped, and her scars no longer felt strange beneath her fingertips. But there was a small empty space inside her now: sometimes an aching void, sometimes a sweetly shaped hollow that turned the wind to music.

When she saw the shadow approaching over the starlit grass, she knew him at once by the silhouette of his wind-flared coat. Her thrill of joy was tempered by caution; she knew the man, but not his intentions. She appreciated, at least, that he chose to approach on foot rather than materialize beside her in an ostentatious display of power.

"My love," she heard herself murmur.

His steps halted. "Your love?" came his silken voice in the darkness. "I shudder to think how you treat those to whom you are indifferent. My messengers have gone unanswered, and Heimdall has been strangely silent regarding your whereabouts. Are you hiding from me, Sigyn Eiriksdottir?"

"Yes," she said. She hadn't seen the king since she had slipped away from the stage at the Aesir stadium in the chaos that followed his confession. "I am sorry, beloved, but I cannot move forward if I am forever looking back. What happened between us was terrible and beautiful, but there is no future in it. The realm would not accept an illiterate scullion as queen, and I will be no man's mistress. There is nothing to be done."

"There is always something to be done," he said, beginning to approach her again. He stopped when he stood before her; she remained seated on the wall.

"Perhaps," she said. "But some things simply take time. Your need for instant acclaim, instant forgiveness, instant resolution, has time and again nearly brought you to ruin. I would have you learn patience."

"And I," he said, moving closer to gently wedge himself between her knees, "would have you learn a sense of urgency."

He bent toward her, and Sigyn allowed herself a brief surrender; she let her head fall back into his hand, let him open her mouth with his. He was no longer feverish, but his mouth and tongue were warm, and his ardor left her lightheaded. He drew her against him with his free arm, groaning as though laying down a heavy burden. She shuddered at the sound and slipped her hand inside his coat to steady herself against the warmth of his back. He kissed her breathless, then drew away and looked down at her face. He smiled at what he saw.

"If time is what you require, then you may have it," he said softly. "But mark my words, Sigyn Eiriksdottir. I will find a way to make you mine."

With that, he brushed her mouth with one last kiss, then gave in to his penchant for theatrics and slipped away from her into the shadows like ink into a brush.

Sigyn gazed at the swatch of night where Loki had disappeared, and addressed it in a whisper.

"I am already yours," she said.

* * *

**Author's Notes**

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Thanks to all of you for the wonderful response to this story. You have no idea how much I adore all of you, and how your praise made me swoon. Your reactions were what kept me obsessed with this little tale for two solid weeks.

To answer some FAQ:

Yes, ItEYWK is really over. I will be polishing up the chapters a bit for the repost on AO3, but it will not see significant changes, probably. If you're truly addicted and want some continued fixes of Loki and Sigyn, I strongly suggest you follow my tumblr and/or Twitter!

Contact Info:  
You may email me at **IncantationFetter at mail dot com**. (yes, mail, not gmail)

I am on Twitter at **IncantFetter**.

I have a new tumblr at **sigyn-eiriksdottir** dot tumblr dot com, and I have great plans for it.

I know many of you are disappointed that Loki/Sigyn did not marry at the end, but the longer I wrote this story, the more I felt it just wasn't realistic for two people as prideful (in their different ways) as Loki and Sigyn, with as complicated a past as they have, to surrender to that sort of commitment after a handful of days. Loki is still the man responsible for Sigyn's father's death, he has still played mind-games with her and lied to her and slept with another woman during the course of this story, and I would not respect her if she pledged herself to him after one (admittedly spectacular and public) apology. They still have a long way to go before Sigyn can fully trust Loki, and before Loki can fully trust anyone enough to admit love.

On that note... I do have the beginnings of an idea for at least one eventual sequel, but right now it's time for me to turn my attention back to work and family. I also don't like to post things until they are very nearly finished; this allows me to update daily while people's interest is still hot. So it will probably be many moons before the sequel(s) is/are posted, and when that happens, it will be on AO3 (Archive of Our Own) for several reasons, not the least of which is that it may stray into M+ territory. Though I know people do post explicit things on this site, technically the site rules forbid it and I don't like to break rules. So if you're interested, please join AO3 and follow me there! Same handle.

I am sorry if the story feels rushed or incomplete. I did not slap down an ending in a hurry, I swear: I had a plan and I followed it from start to finish. But perhaps the plan itself was flawed, because it doesn't seem to have come across as complete as I'd hoped. However, I have literally spent two weeks of my life doing almost nothing but writing this, and there comes a point at which I have to go back to stuff like my actual job. If any of you have constructive suggestions about where I went wrong, email them to me, and I'll consider implementing them in a (far, far, far) future rewrite.

Right now, though, I've got a real-life novel rewrite and a new novel outline sitting ignored on my "to do" list, and people waiting to see them. Priorities, always. I am glad, though, for whatever enjoyment this diversion was able to bring you, and I do sincerely regret any disappointment it caused.

I will not be as frequent a visitor on this site in the next little while, so I really encourage you to get in touch with me via Twitter, Tumblr, etc. if you'd like to stay abreast of any more glimpses into Sigyn Eiriksdottir's universe. I live to please. Also, I'm just a little lonely without you. :)

Yours,

IF


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